


Terrible Things

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Human Experimentation, Mindfuck, Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:45:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Arthur woke up and discovered that no one remembered Ariadne and the Fischer job never happened. Finding her only led to even more problems...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Defining Reality

**Author's Note:**

> For the second round of [the Inception Reverse Bang.](http://i-reversebang.livejournal.com) I received [prompt #1033](http://i.imgur.com/VH5NM.png) by nessismore.

I knew terrible things... But I knew I mustn't let adults _know_ I knew... It would scare them.  
—Maurice Sendak

Arthur woke suddenly, though he couldn't have said what woke him. The bed was comfortable, the sheets soft and the blankets adjusted just right. The shades were drawn, and sunlight was visible through the thick fabric. It was quiet, almost too quiet. He sat up in bed and rolled his shoulders to loosen them. He felt almost achy, as if he had spent too much time in bed. Dressed only in sleep pants, he stretched his arms out next. He was alone in the room, though he had fallen asleep curled around a petite brunette with an incredible talent for design. "Ariadne," he called out playfully. "I told you not to let me sleep in! We had plans for today!"

There wasn't any reply coming from the living room or kitchen. Arthur got up, noting his PASIV lying beside the bed, shut tight and stowed upright as if it was an ordinary briefcase. The room looked neater than it had last night. Ariadne was usually unconcerned with the chaos she left in her wake, with clothes strewn on the floor in her haste to take them off before kissing him or pushing him down to the bed. She was as enthusiastic in her lovemaking as she was for life, and the night before she had teased him mercilessly with her lips and tongue before she clambered on top of him and rode him into oblivion.

Jaws stretched wide in a yawn, Arthur headed out of the bedroom. He must have been exhausted if she was able to clean up and he had slept through it. Usually he was a light sleeper. Though they were all safe now, two years on the run with Cobb and the illicit dream share projects before that had trained him to sleep lightly. It was difficult to undo those years of habit in just a few months of safety. This morning was the first time he had slept so deeply in years.

"Ariadne," he called as he entered the living room. He stopped short.

They had moved into a furnished apartment in Paris together. It had been fun to enthusiastically christen the apartment, though there had been a lot of wreckage. Today they were supposed to go furniture shopping to replace the broken items. Ariadne had insisted they needed to find something reflecting their style, rather than sticking with generic items like the one that came with the apartment.

He was not currently in that apartment.

Arthur didn't recognize this place, but it resembled one of the many safe houses he had been in throughout his years on the run. There was nothing personal about the place, nothing to indicate that he had even come here with a woman.

But he remembered dinner the night before. They went to a restaurant in la Rive Gauche, some little hole in the wall place Ariadne had found while looking at structures to clear her head before presenting her thesis. She had been nervous about it, as brilliant as she was, and he had finally convinced her over dinner not to worry. Ariadne had laughed at the silly jokes he made, her golden eyes lighting up. He had curled a lock of her hair around a finger, then pulled her closer so he could kiss her. "Perhaps we should get a room," she said, eyes twinkling with mischief. "I know a really comfortable one."

"Do you?" he had replied, lips holding only the barest of smiles. Most people seemed to find his calm demeanor off putting, thinking him cold or emotionally stunted. It was more reticence; what good would it have done him to get attached to people he could never stay with? He had watched Cobb fall apart without Mal, abandoning his children in this fruitless effort to try to prove his innocence. It was out of love for Mal that he stayed with Cobb, though there was a healthy dose of guilt in that, too. Why hadn't he seen how far she had deteriorated? Why hadn't he been able to get her back to reality?

Ariadne had dragged him away from his thoughts when she ran her hand along his chest. Arthur let himself grin at her. "I do," she had said, playfully leering at him. "Shall I show you?"

"By all means," he had replied. After the quick walk back to their apartment, she had pounced, kissing him thoroughly. It had been fun to go through the rooms of the apartment and have sex wherever they could. Every time had still felt new, that wonder that he was lucky enough to find someone that could keep up with him intellectually as well as physically adding to the joy of actually being in a relationship. Arthur took control of the kiss, then held her arms up over her head to keep her from undressing him immediately. "We've got all night," he reminded her, smiling against her lips.

"Well, sure," she had agreed, kissing him as she spoke. "For round two and three and four..."

"Greedy," he had laughed, letting go of her hands to run his own down her back.

"For you? Always."

They had stumbled toward the bedroom, her scarf falling somewhere near the doorway and her blouse near the closet. Arthur had taken a little more care with his own clothing, but she had finally just pulled his belt out of the pant loops and tossed it aside. She helped tackle his clothes and threw them to the floor along with her own. Ariadne laughed as she pushed him onto his back on the bed, then crawled up beside him. Arthur had run his hands over her bare skin, teasing her thighs and rear before bringing his hands up to her torso. In the meantime, Ariadne had bent to kiss his chest and stroke his cock. She refused to let it end quickly; every time Arthur canted his hips up into her hand or mouth, she leaned back and merely grinned at him with a goofy expression. He teased her folds in retaliation, making her catch her breath and gasp.

Back and forth they teased each other, until finally Ariadne climbed on top and guided him into her. She let out a happy little sigh and rocked against him slowly at first. Arthur slid his hands along her hips, then up to her torso. Ariadne began to rock harder against him, chasing her own pleasure. He moved down to rub at her clit, knowing he wouldn't be able to last. After she came, he let go. Ariadne laid down on top of him, her head tucked against his shoulder. They snuggled for a few minutes before cleaning up, and Arthur put on his sleep pants. Ariadne hadn't bothered with any clothing and just curled up around his body. Just before he fell asleep, Arthur had heard her whisper "I love you, Arthur. I will always love you."

Now there was no sign of her in the apartment at all. And this was not the apartment he had fallen asleep in, but some strange place he had never seen before.

Arthur yanked open the door to the bedroom, this time taking in the details he had missed earlier in his panic. It didn't have the same bed he had fallen asleep in, though the quality of the sheets and blanket was the same. His clothes were neatly hung in the closet waiting for him, his overnight bag and shoes on the floor. It was his usual trick to get the wrinkles of the clothes so he would look presentable and trustworthy on the job. Otherwise he looked too damn young. No one would take him seriously if he looked like a goddamn kid about to rough someone up for a joint. These weren't the clothes he had expected to find, and he had certainly not expected to find his overnight bag on the floor of the closet. He had put that away months ago after an overnight trip to Brussels with Ariadne.

Ariadne. Where the hell was she?

Arthur started when his cell phone trilled. He frowned at the number calling him. "Dom," he said. "Is something wrong?"

"You tell me," Cobb replied, anxiety in his tone. "I haven't heard from you in three days. I was starting to think Cobol's goons had killed you after all."

"What?" This was a surprise. He had always managed to dodge Cobol's influence, if only because Cobb had been the one to take on the job. Everyone in dream share knew of Arthur, of course, and they knew that he worked with Cobb almost exclusively. Very few people would fuck with Arthur just for the hell of it. Even Cobol's goons tended to think twice.

"Arthur, what's wrong? You just dropped off the grid after saying you were checking out Cobol's job offer. They're waiting to hear my response, and I still don't know what to do about it."

There was something almost eerie about this conversation, though Arthur couldn't put his finger on it. He rubbed at his temple, trying to think. His worry for Ariadne was still there, but now he was concerned for Cobb, too. "What about the kids?"

"What about them?"

"I thought you were retiring now that you're home." Jesus Christ, was he supposed to take care of the entire world?

Cobb let out a strangled noise. _"Arthur._ Marie is with them. I can get them gifts through her if she'll see Stephen, but you know I can't go back to see them. I can't go home yet. You know this. I need more time."

Arthur's blood ran cold and he stopped looking through the apartment trying to find some clue of where Ariadne might have gone. He moved to the bedroom window and peered outside through a corner of it, careful not to disturb the shades too much. It was Paris, just the way he had remembered it from the night before. Not Cobol's territory. Just to be sure, he dug out his totem from his overnight bag and rolled it. He couldn't breathe until it came up its usual number, telling him he wasn't in someone else's dream.

 _But what if this is yours?_ his mind asked him, voice silky and almost menacing. _What if you're dreaming_ right now _and you'll never see Ariadne again?_

Fear gripped him. "Cobb. What day is it?"

"Arthur, what the hell is wrong with you?"

_"What fucking day is it?!"_

Cobb went silent for a moment. Arthur had never raised his voice at him, never, and had taken all of Cobb's myriad meltdowns with considerable aplomb. He had never been on the receiving end of it, and Cobb didn't know how to take it. When he finally did speak, Arthur sat down heavily, his hands shaking. It was the day it should have been and he was in the city he should have been, but Cobb wasn't with his children and still thought the authorities in the United States were after him. This wasn't happening, couldn't be happening.

"When was the last time you saw Ariadne?" Arthur rasped, dreading his friend's answer.

"Who?"

No, this couldn't be happening. This was a sick joke. "The architect you found through Stephen Miles, the student. The one we brought in for the Fischer job."

"What are you talking about?" Cobb asked, confused. "The last architect we worked with was Nash, not some student. Miles won't introduce any of his students to me, not with us on the run the way we are. He doesn't want me corrupting any of his prodigies. Where are you? I'm still in Geneva, I'll be right there."

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut. Geneva? What the ever-loving hell was going on? "Yeah. Why don't you come here?" Arthur rose woodenly from the bed, then casted about for something that might indicate what the address of this apartment was. It took him several minutes to figure out that this was the address he remembered as his apartment with Ariadne. He was the only one living there, and it had apparently been his safe house for some time. Ariadne had never been there before.

If Cobb was to be believed, Ariadne didn't know any of them.

Waiting for Cobb's arrival, he dialed the contact numbers he had for Eames and Yusuf. The chemist assumed that one of his contacts had forwarded the number to him. He promised very clean somnacin compounds that would give him dreams that were clearer than any government project. It sounded like the Yusuf he remembered, but he spoke like a stranger. He didn't know Ariadne and didn't recognize Arthur's name. Arthur assured Yusuf that he had simply wanted to discuss the possibility of purchasing compounds even if he wasn't in Kenya, and wasn't affiliated with Interpol or any government agencies. Arthur rather doubted that Yusuf believed him or trusted him, but the chemist went through the motions of a sale.

Eames also had no idea who Ariadne was. "Who the hell are you talking about? I haven't worked with you and Cobb since Morocco. Did you have a job for me?"

"I'll let you know once I do," Arthur said, chest feeling hollow. He booted up his laptop and tried to look through his browsing history. Train schedules, museums, restaurant reviews, the school where Stephen Miles taught architecture, Cobol Engineering. There was nothing anywhere online to indicate that Ariadne existed. Maurice Fischer was still alive and well, grooming his son Robert to take over Fischer Morrow upon his death.

"This is not real," he told his computer. He thought of the past few months with Ariadne after the Fischer job, their silly talk the night before and the way she had snuggled up against him and whispered that she loved him. _That_ was real.

He just had to find a way to prove it.

***

"You don't look very good," Cobb said as soon as the apartment door was shut. He took in the sight of Arthur's drawn features and the dark shadows beneath his eyes. "What was all that over the phone earlier?"

Arthur had found digital photos of Ariadne on his computer and a strip of photos from one of those photo booths in his wallet. If he hadn't found them, he would have shot himself in the head to try to wake up. His Glock was still on the coffee table, fully loaded with a round chambered. As much as the photos comforted him, Arthur hadn't completely ruled out shooting himself awake. He gave the strip of photos to Cobb. "Do you know her?"

Cobb looked over the photos. The young woman in the photo had curling brunette hair, golden eyes and a hand hiding part of her innocent looking face. She was grinning, as if she had been in the middle of telling a joke and simply playing around while hiding her face. She wasn't familiar in the slightest, and telling Arthur that made him glower. "What the hell is going on, Arthur? Who is she and why are you so upset?"

"No one remembers the Fischer job. It's as if it never happened."

Sighing, Cobb sat down on the sofa. "Have you worked on any jobs without me?"

"You know I wouldn't do that," Arthur snapped. He had promised Mal he would protect Cobb, and that generally included saving him from himself. The man sometimes seemed to have a death wish, given how often he did everything he wasn't supposed to do. At the same time, he always seemed to squeak through relatively unscathed.

Arthur ran a hand through his loose hair and sat down opposite from Cobb. "I know how it sounds, but there is something very wrong going on right now. Things are _not_ the way they should be."

Cobb blanched; it was too familiar to how Mal's descent had begun. "Arthur..."

"I told you, I know how this sounds. But I never went down as far as you and Mal did, never dropped into limbo." He ignored the shock on Cobb's face. Ariadne had told him everything during the six days they had spent together in the first level of the Fischer job. They had talked about anything and everything, which was probably why everything had moved so fast after their landing in LA. It didn't matter that he couldn't find information about Fischer making that flight from Sydney to LA. _It happened._

"Have I been pushing you too hard? Is that what this is?" Now Cobb looked guilty. "I know I want to go home. There isn't much else I can do, since Marie won't bring them to Europe for me to see them. I don't have any other options, but you do. You don't have to throw your life away to try to save mine."

"Dom..."

Cobb got up and began to pace as he spoke. "I know what it's like to doubt your reality, to feel like some of it makes sense and the rest of it really doesn't. I know what it's like to doubt every move you make, second guessing yourself."

"I don't," Arthur interrupted. He stared at Cobb evenly. "She exists. Maybe something happened and she's trying to protect me from it. Or I could be dreaming right now, and I need to kill myself to wake up." His eyes strayed to his Glock, the waiting round weighing heavily in his mind.

"Listen to yourself! You know who you sound like, don't you? You know what this looks like to me, when you are concocting stories to explain away something like this? Occam's razor, Arthur. The simplest explanation is the most likely, and the simplest explanation here is that she doesn't exist. There is no architecture student named Ariadne. We never did the Fischer job. And for whatever reason, you're convinced of it, even if it isn't true." He looked infinitely sad as he sat down across from Arthur. "I know my subconscious hasn't been kind to you. I know you keep bending over backward to help me, and it's for Mal's sake. I know how fucked up it is that I can't let her go. I know this."

"You can't possibly," Arthur said. His expression was a warning for Cobb to drop this line of discussion, but of course he didn't.

"I know what you're going through, Arthur. I know what this looks like. Please, Arthur. Don't be me. Don't make the same mistakes that we did."

"Goddammit, Dom!" Arthur burst out. It was as if a floodgate of resentment had opened, and all the minor hurts and disappointments had to be given voice. "I have _never_ doubted you when you said Mal jumped. I never asked if you drove her to it, if something happened while you were trapped in limbo. I didn't question every move you made after you fled California, and never _once_ took you to task for all the shit your shade has put me through. You corrupted every memory you've had of her, and every job you take actually puts you farther and farther from home. You're not going to get the charges dropped, Dom. Running like that only made you look even more guilty. Even all of Saito's connections won't erase the charges waiting for you if you return to the US."

Cobb sat there very still and didn't contradict Arthur. He knew his position was indefensible, and any excuse would be picked apart and thrown back at his face. "What if Ariadne is _your_ shade? Your projection?" he asked softly. "We've both been dreaming for so long, longer than any of the first protocols allowed for. The grades of somnacin we've been using aren't approved by the International Council..."

 _"That's not what's happening,"_ Arthur snarled. The vehemence of his statement surprised them both, and Arthur paused long enough to drop down into a seat across from Cobb.

For the sake of their friendship, Arthur took a deep breath and steepled his hands in front of his face. "I can appreciate the concern, Dom. I can. It's misguided, ill informed and belittling. I know when I'm asleep and when I'm not. Don't you think I've checked my totem by now?"

Cobb had the grace to flush; they both knew sometimes he had to check his a dozen times a day, especially if he saw a woman on the street that vaguely looked like Mal. "I don't want to see the same thing happening to you, Arthur. I can't stand aside and watch that happen again, especially now that I know what it looks like. Don't ask me to pretend that's not what I see."

"What do you see?" Arthur snapped, irritated.

"You're insisting a woman exists that doesn't, that the entire community is in on some kind of vast conspiracy, that jobs we never did happened. That's a sure sign that the edges of reality and the dreams are blurring. You've had too much exposure to somnacin..."

"You're going to tell me to stop it cold turkey?" Arthur scoffed. "We both need it to function at this point. Asking me to stop taking it completely might trigger seizures at this point."

"I know that. But we'll take fewer jobs, space out the exposure. Don't do so many drops, not as many levels within the dreams. If it's clearer where the boundaries are, you won't get lost."

"I don't lose my way," Arthur told him icily, clipped tones bringing Cobb's protest short. "If anything, I focus on the practical aspects of the plans you put together and make sure they don't fall apart."

Cobb looked at the photo booth strip, taking in the playful smile and the hand partially covering her face. She was pretty, but he couldn't understand the intensity behind Arthur's assertions she was real. He had never seemed this devoted to anyone but Mal before. He looked up after a moment, staring at Arthur evenly. "So what's your plan now?"

"I need to track her down. That will prove to you that she exists."

"And if she doesn't?" Cobb asked quietly.

The glower Arthur shot him was terrible to behold and answer enough.

***

They had gone to Luxemburg to visit some of the castles in the area. Ariadne had laughed delightedly, her arm linked through Arthur's as they strolled down the streets. Her perspective sketches that she made later captured the look of the castle as they approached perfectly. Arthur had treated her to a full tour after lunch. She pulled him aside during the tour and kissed him passionately, tongue sliding between his lips. Her hands on his hips kept her balance as she swayed on her tip toes. Arthur was only too aware of her touch and the press of her body flush against his.

That night they tumbled into bed, mouths fused together. He rained kisses over her face and neck, sucking a hickey onto her collarbone. His fingers traced restless patterns onto the skin of her hip. Ariadne scratched Arthur's scalp as she held him against her, gasping in pleasure at his touch. Her legs parted as his hand moved from her hip to her mons. "Yes, Arthur," she said breathily, eyes sliding shut.

She was wet when he touched her, tracing her folds before finding her clit. His slicked fingers moved against her easily in a familiar rhythm. Ariadne ran her nails lightly down his back, then reached between their bodies to grasp his cock. She stroked him, her rhythm stuttering when Arthur sped up. They knew each other's bodies well by now, so it didn't take long for Ariadne to come, writhing beneath him. He lifted her legs up and toward her chest, then sank into her wet heat. He moved at a steady rhythm, holding her legs in place. Ariadne reached down to grasp his hips, pulling him in deeper. He picked up the pace as she tightened, moaning at the feel of him inside her. "Arthur," she moaned, digging her fingers deeper into his flesh. "God, that, there. Right there..."

Arthur came and kept his hips snapping against her as long as he could, but it wasn't enough to tip her over into another orgasm. She held him against her when he collapsed, laughing a little. "You owe me for next time."

"Owe you?" Arthur scoffed. "You came once, too!"

"I thought you were going for a record?" she teased.

"Maybe next time," Arthur laughed. "We walked a lot today..."

Ariadne layered kisses across his face. "You're lucky I love you."

"Yes, I am," Arthur agreed.

Arthur rolled over on the bed as he jerked awake. He was alone, the other half of his bed ice cold. Ariadne wasn't with him and no one believed she even existed. He rubbed his eyes, stretching. He smiled at a line sketch hanging on the wall. It was of a castle...

Jerking fully awake, Arthur got up and looked at it more closely. It was the same sketch from his dream, the one Ariadne had drawn in Luxemburg. Arthur stilled at the sight of it.

_Proof._

Arthur knew Cobb would think it was a simple sketch left in the apartment as one of its furnishings. The extractor seemed determined to consider Ariadne a figment of Arthur's imagination. There was a scrawled A in the corner of the sketch, and Arthur remembered the flourish Ariadne used to sign the sketch.

She had been here. She was real. Whoever had tried to erase her from reality had forgotten about minor details like this. It was all about the details, after all, and Ariadne knew that very well.

Ariadne was real. This was proof, and it strengthened his resolve. She was out there _somewhere,_ and he could only assume it was to protect him. Dream share was dangerous, and it was potentially destructive to both mind and body. She wouldn't worry about herself, he knew. Ariadne thought about the end result, not always how to get there. It was a maddening trait, even if it helped complete jobs. Arthur had enemies, and it wouldn't surprise him in the least if she thought to sacrifice herself for him.

He would find her. Arthur was scarily efficient at his job, and he was determined to find her.

He went through the motions of his day. Cobb had a job to look into aside from the Cobol Engineering one that Arthur rejected. Arthur easily did a cursory check; this was a no brainer of a job, easy money to obtain. It would keep them flush for a while, and Arthur planned to track down Ariadne.

Professor Stephen Miles refused to see Arthur. It was a low blow; Miles used to enjoy his company and had encouraged his friendship with Mal. Miles had never held him responsible for her death, but perhaps Miles was angry with Arthur for not convincing Cobb to return to the United States. Perhaps Miles believed Cobb was guilty.

There were no university records for an Ariadne. Perhaps it was a middle name or a nickname. Those wouldn't show up in any official databases. Cobb thought he was crazy, but this wasn't enough to make Arthur doubt himself. She was out there somewhere. Ariadne was out there and trying to protect him from whatever she thought was dangerous. That was endearing and maddening all at once.

"Ask Miles about Ariadne," Arthur said to Cobb. He could tell the extractor didn't want to. "I need to know."

"I did already," Cobb told him with a sigh. "She doesn't exist, Arthur. Let it go."

Never. Not when he could still feel her touch and hear the sound of her laughter. He could hear her voice, could see the smiles she sent him.

Arthur had never been so fixated on someone like this before. But this entire situation was surreal, and he _had_ to know the truth, no matter the cost. Days turned into weeks. No one had heard of her, seen her or knew how to track her down. Arthur was getting desperate to find her. He couldn't explain why, but he _needed_ her.

"There are no hits via Interpol, FBI or CIA databases," one of Arthur's contacts told him. "It's only a partial photo, so that makes it harder to get a match. Either way, I can't ID your girl there. No criminal record, at least."

Ariadne hadn't been part of dream share before the Fischer job. She had been a student; of _course_ she had no criminal record. Arthur had known that already.

Arthur was in Athens with Cobb to meet a new architect when he saw her. She was part of a tour of some kind, all smiles and laughter with the others in the group. She was dressed in a tank top beneath a button down shirt over jeans, a Nikon slung around her neck on a thick strap. She was snapping pictures of everything, just the way she used to sketch everything in her notebooks. He was startled to see a large Moleskine in her hand and a gel pen, writing something down as she spoke. For an impossible moment, Arthur was afraid she was a ghost and would disappear as soon as he blinked.

He pushed his way through the crowds, ignoring Cobb's shouts. As he got closer, Arthur could hear the cadence of her speech, something about ruins and the fall of light over the objects they were looking at. She wanted a better shot, and her companions rearranged themselves to her liking before she took another picture.

"Ariadne!" he shouted, pushing to get to her side even faster.

She didn't turn her head or give any indication that she had heard him. There were so many people milling about aimlessly between them, the background chatter rising in volume and still unintelligible. Arthur was tempted to keep shoving his way there, but it felt as though every time he did that, more people got in the way and he never got any closer. Ducking and weaving seemed to help. He at least got to where Ariadne and her tour group had been standing, though she wasn't there any longer.

Cobb caught up with him. "What the fuck, Arthur? You never just take off like that. What's gotten into you?"

"She's here, I saw her. Ariadne's here."

It was obvious that Cobb wanted to say something biting, and was trying not to. "Listen, I know you keep talking about her and you have that photo in your pocket..."

Arthur caught a flash of curling brown hair and the ghostly echo of Ariadne's laughter. "Hold that thought," he muttered, ducking through the crowd away from Cobb. The extractor sputtered and pushed his way after Arthur; he was somewhat dismayed to find that Cobb had no trouble navigating through the crowds. "Ariadne!" he called out, seeing her take another photo of the people in her travel group.

Cobb nearly reached out and grabbed Arthur's arm, but he twisted out of his grasp and broke out into a run along the sides of the road. "Arthur! Get back here!"

"Ariadne!" Arthur shouted. She didn't turn her head or acknowledge that she even heard him, which he found troubling. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, but he couldn't help himself. After being without her for so long, there was no way in hell that he was simply going to let her walk away.

When he caught up with her, there was no recognition in her eyes. He had her in his arms, and she felt exactly the same. She looked up at him with her large golden eyes, the smoldering eye shadow look done just the way she usually did it. Everything was the same about her except for the expression on her face. It wasn't frightened, but it was like looking into the eyes of an absolute stranger.

What if her memories of him had been erased?

"Ariadne," Arthur said, voice pitched softer. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Do I know you?" she asked, though her eyes shifted everywhere and she refused to make eye contact. He could only assume that she was afraid of something. Or for him.

"Ariadne," he murmured. "It's me, Arthur. It's taken me this long to find you."

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice just as he remembered it. "This isn't what you think it is..."

Arthur pulled her in for a kiss, his tongue sliding between her parted lips. She clung to his shoulders as he poured his soul into that kiss. She responded for a brief instant, then pushed at him to break the kiss. "Ariadne," he pleaded, eyes raking across her face. "Why did you disappear like that?"

"I've been where I'm supposed to be," she said, brows furrowed in concern. "I don't know what you're talking about." She looked around, and the others on the tour were looking at her curiously. One of them seemed almost hostile. "Come on. We can't talk here."

Hope flared in his chest, sharp and painful and terrible. She moved through the crowd, Nikon around her neck and his hand caught tightly in hers. It felt the same, and Arthur wondered what her plan had been. Had she thought to observe him from afar? She had always seemed like a romantic while they were together. Perhaps that was her way to make sure her sacrifice had meant something.

They walked into a store he didn't remember seeing, and she dragged him into a back room before the shopkeeper could protest in broken English. "Ariadne," Arthur began slowly. "What happened? Where did you go? Is someone following you? You know I would have been able to help you hide, get you out of trouble if only you came to me..."

The expression on her face stopped him. It was clinical, assessing him in a way Ariadne had never even done with Cobb when she was digging around in his memories. "It appears to be memory degradation, Major," she said, brows furrowing. She bit her lip, and Arthur was instantly overcome by a spike of fear in his gut. Something was very, very wrong, and that gesture of hers was familiar and alien at once. "I'm making the call," she said finally. Her expression softened for a moment. "I'm sorry, I really am. I know how much you wanted to be part of this, but I can't let this go on any further. It's not safe."

Arthur grasped her in his arms before she could move. There was something almost like fear in her eyes, and it made him sick to his stomach.

And then it hit him. She called him _Major._ He hadn't carried that title since he left the army, and he had never discussed that time with her.

He kissed her, long and slow and deep, hands tangled in her hair. It was love and desperation and a farewell of sorts; he had upset her plans and likely set something dangerous in motion. But he hadn't felt like himself in months, ever since she had disappeared. His stoic demeanor had shattered and he had felt adrift in the dream share community. This was why it was treacherous to _want._ This was why he had clung to professionalism, hidden behind his Moleskines and sarcasm, the minimalist expressions and crisp execution of prearranged plans. He had been caged by his own code of behavior, but it had been safe. It had kept him in the game, ready to do whatever it took to keep Cobb a step ahead of the authorities and the pair of them from being ripped apart by angry projections. He didn't have to think about the larger picture, about why he persisted in this line of work and suppressed his own desires.

It hadn't been intentional, but Ariadne had shaken his sense of purpose. Why _couldn't_ he get what he wanted? Why _couldn't_ he stay in the game and have a life of his own, be something other than the point man? He didn't have to hold himself apart anymore. He could still be objective in his professional role, still make the hard calls about the safety measures on a job and when to cut his losses. He could still see the weaknesses in the plans that Cobb put together, could still assess the situation with clinical clarity.

His life had been empty of emotional attachments after Mal's death; the friendship with Cobb had been a mere echo of what he had once had when Mal was alive. Too much of Cobb had died along with her and was tied up with her shade in his mind. Arthur learned from their mistakes, wouldn't have to repeat them with Ariadne. They knew the risks, and they had been willing to try anyway. He could have had it all.

Ariadne pulled away from him, and the Nikon was no longer around her neck. He hadn't noticed that it wasn't pressed against his chest, pinned between their bodies. Now she had a 1911 in her hand, and it was pressed against his temple. "It's been a good run, Major," she said quietly, regret in her voice. "But now it's time to wake up."

Before he could ask her what she meant, she pulled the trigger.

***  
****


	2. Shadow Play

Arthur woke in a lab. He was surrounded by clinical white and sterile blue, the sound of beeping monitors and the steady drip of an IV line. He could hear the susurrus of cloth rubbing against cloth as someone stirred beside him. It took him a moment to calm his breathing, and he could feel an IV in the crook of one arm as well as electrodes along his temples and scalp. The ceiling above his hospital bed seemed familiar and strange at once, as if he should have remembered where he was but somehow couldn't. Raising a hand experimentally, he noticed that he was dressed in green scrubs, a thin hospital grade blanket drawn over his legs for comfort. His hand seemed almost alien to him. It didn't look quite right, and he couldn't figure out why.

Turning his head, he saw Ariadne stretch and sit up. She withdrew her own line with brisk precision and pulled a piece of unsterile gauze from an open package beside her own hospital bed to press against the bead of blood that rose from the needle site. Her bed was lower down to the ground and the side rails hadn't been raised. Throwing her legs over the side, she easily stood up and approached his bed. The recognition in her eyes was different from what he had seen in Athens or throughout their entire relationship prior to that. There was a sense of clinical efficiency about her, as if she was exuding the professional shell that Arthur used to. She was dressed in a blue top and khakis beneath a white lab coat. The name tag read _A. Riordan,_ which hadn't been her last name.

What the hell was going on?

She came over to Arthur's side and removed one of the lines feeding into the main IV line. She looked at Arthur, a hand resting on his arm. "You're okay," she said softly, lips curling into a slight smile of concern. "You're okay."

Arthur looked up at Ariadne with wide eyes. "Wait, Ariadne," he murmured, reaching for her.

Frowning, she patted his arm gently. "There's still some of the sedative in your system. A little flumazenil ought to flush that right out, not to worry." She moved away to the table near the head of his hospital bed. He watched her set up the syringe and needle, then draw out a measure of the clear fluid from a small glass vial. She injected it into one of the membranes on the IV line still attached to his arm. Capping the needle with the attached safety lock, she opened up another drawer and drew out a wrapped saline flush. As she flushed the line, she turned away from Arthur and faced another person. "Joseph, did you raid my drawer again? I've only got one more five mL flush left," she complained, pronouncing the measurement as _mill._

Arthur couldn't quite follow what she was saying, and looked over at the person she was talking to. He froze when he saw Yusuf standing beside a sleeping Eames, who was hooked up to an IV line with different saline drips attached to the line. It was a setup just like Arthur's. In the bed beyond that was Saito. On Arthur's other side was Cobb.

What the hell was going on here?

Yusuf – Joseph in this strange place, but it was still Yusuf – shook his head at Ariadne. "Of course not, Alice. Maybe Tadashi never refilled the stock? He came through for inventory check a few hours ago, I know that. I have tens if you need any more flushes."

"Yeah, that'll help," Ariadne said. _Alice._ Her name here was Alice.

Arthur watched her come back to his side with three wrapped ten mL flushes. She smiled at him, and he could feel his heart stutter in his chest. "Hey. You're more alert already."

"Alice, you need antagonist over there?" Joseph called from Eames' side. He had a clipboard in hand and was copying data from the monitors attached to Eames.

"Nah. I stopped the somnacin feed, so it should flush out on its own in a few minutes." Alice had her own clipboard and made notations on it from the monitors behind Arthur's bed. She leaned against the hospital bed with that half smile on her face. "Major, you ought to start feeling more like yourself soon enough."

Arthur watched her face carefully. "You keep calling me Major."

That seemed to throw her for a loop. "Of course I would. That's your title."

"What are you talking about? I left the army years ago."

Visibly disturbed, Alice put her clipboard down and reached into the breast pocket for a penlight. "All right, then, Douglas. Let's do a neuro check."

Arthur frowned deeply at her. "That's not my name." Well, it hadn't been in years, at least.

She compressed her lips unhappily. "Let's do that neuro check."

He cooperated as she swung the light into and out of his line of sight, checked his visual fields, reflexes, muscle strength and sensation. It was a rigorous exam, apparently more than what was usually given. Joseph wandered over to Alice's side with a frown, watching them. "What's up, Alice?" he asked _sotto voce._

She didn't answer, but kept going through the exam and monitoring the vital signs on the machines. Arthur found it fascinating to see her facial expressions. Alice had that same single minded concentration that Ariadne did. Her name tag hovered close to his eyes, just inside the optimal focal length. The letters blurred, making him read it as _Ariadne._

"Alice?" Joseph asked in concern.

"I think it's another drop attack," Alice replied, tension in her posture and tone.

"Shit. Annabelle still calls herself Mallorie."

Arthur swung his eyes toward Yusuf in shock. No, not Yusuf. Joseph. It was hard to keep things straight, because none of this made sense.

"Yeah, I know," Alice muttered. "If that's what this is, we need to pull the plug."

"They're not going to like it," Joseph muttered, shaking his head. "Sullivan wants results."

"Sullivan can kiss my ass," Alice snapped. "I'm the lead on the IRB forms, I'm the one that calibrated the drops and levels. We can go elsewhere if it comes to it," she added, pulling herself up to her full height. She was tiny, but her attitude more than made up for it.

Joseph raised his hands in mock surrender. "It would still be part of the alphabet soup, Alice. The DOD wants a viable product."

"Not at the expense of their minds."

"Preaching to the choir, my friend," Joseph told her with a smile. He nodded at Arthur. "CNS intact there. Might as well move along to the debrief protocol. I'll check the rest of the crew while you do that."

Alice thanked him and then led Arthur to a plain white painted room. His knees had buckled when he first got off of the bed, and Alice had to support part of his weight until he sat down across from her. There was a digital recorder, a thick manila folder and a three inch binder with the label "Somnus" on it in sans serif font. Arthur vaguely remembered the Somnus Project when he was in the army; it had been a virtual training playground, where they could shoot and kill each other with impunity.

She ran through the binder's standardized questions, dutifully taking down his answers in detail, no matter how ridiculous they seemed. Arthur watched her closely, once or twice making the mistake of calling her Ariadne. She didn't seem to like the name, but it wasn't something that she corrected him for. He stopped trying to censor himself after a while, which made her frown even more often.

Finally she slammed the binder shut, making Arthur jump slightly. "Jesus Christ, Major," she said, shaking her head. "This was not supposed to happen." Arthur realized there was a tremor in her hands as she pushed the binder away from her. The notes in her hand were fluttering. There was a stricken expression on her face as she looked up at him, and for some reason he was dreading what she would say next.

"Let me take you to your quarters," she said finally. "Let me figure this one out."

"What's there to figure out?" Arthur asked. It only just occurred to him that he didn't have a totem with him. His totem was lost somehow, and he balled his hands into fists on his lap. This was how it started for Mal, wasn't it? She had her totem, but didn't trust it and stopped using it to check if she was in reality or not.

"Hopefully the damage isn't permanent," she continued as she stood. Arthur did as well, eyes fixed on her face. She flushed almost uncomfortably under his gaze. "This wasn't meant to happen, Major. I'm really sorry..."

As she passed next to him, he caught her arm in his hand. She stopped, panic flaring in her eyes as she looked up at him. "Ariadne," he murmured, brushing his fingertips across her cheeks. "I know that whatever happened, we'll make it right."

Her eyes dilated and her lips parted. She wasn't as unaffected as she pretended to be, so Arthur would have to be content with that for now. He could play along until he figured out where they were and why everything he had ever known was being corrupted.

***

The research complex was part of an army base. That much was easy to figure out. Arthur thought that perhaps the army had gotten better at hiding what they were doing with these projects, though it could just as easily have been because the public simply didn't care. As long as they got their reality TV, junk food and public assistance benefits, no one seemed to care what defense spending covered. All right, Arthur admitted to himself after a moment, that wasn't exactly a charitable thought. But he had been on his own and working hard for years before going on the run. He wasn't used to being dependent on others or having this much free time on his hands. Even when on the run, he tended to fill up his time learning new skills or doing background reading on different corporations.

Arthur wasn't fond of free time before, and he absolutely detested it now. He wandered through the complex halls he was permitted to walk through, mindful of the automatic rifles that guards carried in certain areas. He mapped out their location and guessed at what those labs contained, though he gave no overt indication that he was curious about them.

His biggest shock was seeing Mal in the mess hall.

She was delighted to see him, which seemed to set Joseph's teeth on edge. He had been trying to talk to her, though he insisted on calling her Annabelle and reminding her that she didn't have any children. Mal brushed him off and gave Arthur a kiss on either cheek. "I'd say I'm glad to see you," she began, smiling at him. "But I'm not sure that's a good thing."

Her voice was exactly the same. It was accented the same way and carried the familiar cadence he remembered. Arthur didn't plan on telling her that he had last seen her as a murderous projection in Cobb's mind. Some things she didn't need to know.

"Well, for better or worse, I'm here," Arthur told her. "Dom's still..." He gesticulated with his hand, shaking his head. "Marie has taken over care of the kids. We went on the run, since he didn't want to be charged with your murder."

Mal sighed and leaned back in her chair. She was still beautiful, even in the bland clothes that the military seemed to put everyone into. "I tried to tell him, but he simply wouldn't listen."

"It's _Dom,"_ Arthur reminded her. "Did you really think he would?"

"I didn't give him too many options," Mal replied churlishly. Both were ignoring Joseph, who was unabashedly listening in on their conversation. "He should have come with me."

"But he couldn't. He's still trying to find a way to clear his name enough to go home and take care of the kids. Someone had to, Mal." Arthur ran a hand through his hair. It was getting too long to go without gel or pomade, neither of which he was given. He supposed he should have been thankful he even got clean clothes that weren't scrubs.

She pulled a face and reached across the table to tug on his hair. "Oh, Arthur. What are they doing to you here?"

"Right now? Asking lots of questions they don't want to hear the answer to. How about you?"

"Annoying me," she said, giving Joseph a pointed look. "It's their job, but still." She leaned back in her chair. "I think they do this for all the dreamers they catch outside the confines of law. I thought we were better protected than that, but..."

Arthur sighed. "Mal, even you know better. Some things just aren't what they seem."

She smiled faintly. "I should have realized." She grasped his hand tightly. "Come. You tell me about my husband and all you've been up to since I escaped."

It wasn't difficult to recount Dom's difficulties and the trouble Arthur went through to keep him afloat. Mal didn't seem to notice when his accounts didn't quite match up to one particular timeline. He couldn't be sure what was real or wasn't, or if the Fischer job even happened. The thread of his tale was consistent, however. They did job after job after job, moving ahead of Interpol or any European authorities, trying to find something that could prove his innocence or give him enough money to bribe his way home.

"My poor Dom. All he had to do was trust in me..."

Arthur snorted artlessly. "This is _Dom_ we're talking about. The only one he truly trusted is himself, and even that is open for debate." He smiled when Mal laughed, and reached out to touch her arm gently. "God, it's good to see you, Mal. You know you're a shade in his mind? He's completely broken without you. He's got a good game face, but Dom isn't functioning nearly as well as he wants me to believe."

Mal sighed and looked toward Joseph out of the corner of her eye. She could tell by his expression that he hadn't meant to tell her that, but they had always been close. She didn't think they ever had secrets from each other; she had been up front with him from the start that their world wasn't real, but he had chosen not to believe her. To be entirely truthful, she couldn't exactly blame him. "They won't let me go in and help him. They think I'll hurt him." Now she turned and glared at Joseph. It was the same expression that Cobb's shade had before she pulled the trigger on him. "They also call me by the wrong name."

"He thinks he's helping you," Arthur intoned, seeing Joseph's hurt expression before he smoothed it away. From what little he had seen of Joseph, he was like Yusuf. While he didn't necessarily go out of his way to do heroic deeds, he certainly didn't want to harm anyone and he cared about the people he worked with.

"He likes to watch," Mal sneered with a bitter and angry look on her face. "They all do. Don't tell me you haven't noticed the cameras, Arthur. They watch us all the time. And if you even try to wake up another level, they come for you with the sedatives to knock you down."

Arthur felt a chill roll down his spine. "How many times have you tried, Mal?"

"I lost count at seven." She glared at Joseph. "You can tell me, can't you? How many times have I tried to wake up and you stopped me?"

Joseph didn't flinch at her tone. "You attempted suicide ten times, Annabelle," he told her evenly. "We couldn't let you do that."

"There are places without cameras," she hissed at him. "I could find one of the hallways where your cameras can't see..."

"Annabelle," Joseph began in a soft but firm tone. "This hasn't gotten us anywhere. Is this really working for you?"

Mal snorted. "The psychiatrists are more fun to wind up. They walk around with their needles and pills and think they know _anything_ about what's going on. I've fooled better minds than theirs, don't think I haven't."

This wasn't the Mal that Arthur remembered, not exactly. This one was bitterer and angry, more eager to inflict damage on others. He hadn't lied to Ariadne when he had said Mal was lovely. She had been, once upon a time.

"Oh, but you're my _handler,_ not a psychiatrist," Mal continued, oblivious to Arthur's growing discomfort with her tone. Once she was angry, it was difficult to contain. "You don't pretend you know what's on my mind. You just ask the same fucking questions over and over. I'm not going to say anything different, Joseph."

"This is reality, Annabelle," Joseph told her. He had the air of someone that had done this very same thing thousands of times and knew that he would do it another thousand times. "There are no further levels up. This is it, and you need to accept that."

Mal abruptly stood. "As lovely as it is to see you, Arthur, I have no appetite to stay. I'll see you later... they lock the interesting places, so there are few places we're allowed to go."

Joseph sighed and stood to follow Mal. "Annabelle..."

 _"Ferme sa bouche!"_ Mal snapped angrily. She wagged her finger in his face. "You do me no favors, Joseph. Everything you say is a lie. I need to wake up. This world is not real, and you can't convince me otherwise. My husband will follow me and then we'll be with our real children in the real world."

Arthur couldn't breathe. This was a problem; he had just come from the dream world into this place, and this felt like reality. It wasn't one he liked, since Ariadne didn't remember him, but he could still work with it. Probably.

 _But you thought_ that _world was real, too,_ his mind whispered at him. _How can you trust anything you see? What if she's right? Mal was right about that other world. It wasn't real. How can you be so sure that this is real?_

But down that path lay madness. He could see it in her eyes, shining like a beacon. It was bad enough to see the autopsy reports and hear Cobb telling him about seeing her broken body at the hotel. He had never been able to grieve for Mal as he shored up Cobb, and he had simply moved from one situation to the next to avoid even thinking about it. Now that she was alive, he wouldn't have to go to such extremes. Arthur didn't want to find her corpse here, soulless strangers staring and judging her. He didn't know how he could handle that on his own with nothing to distract him. Perhaps that was why Ariadne had become so important to him. While with her, he didn't have to think about anything else. His demeanor had been different, as if he had sloughed off a skin of pain.

"I'll see you later, Mal," he said, not sure if he could really say anything else at this point. Mal had a way of doing whatever she pleased and neatly trapping others into doing what she wanted them to do. Whatever name she carried, she still had that skill.

Joseph shot Arthur an apologetic look then followed Mal out of the mess hall. Arthur told himself that he would try to find Joseph and actually talk with him. Yusuf had always been good to talk with; he had been very widely read in many topics and tended to wax philosophical as he was titrating his compounds. Arthur had enjoyed those conversations. As much as Yusuf didn't enjoy the hunt of a new job, he did understand Arthur's need for a job well done.

Arthur wasn't alone in the mess hall, however, and his eyes lit on the back of Alice's head. She was facing away from him, quietly eating and going over reading material in a thick black binder. He couldn't help but think it was related to the Somnus Project.

He was at her side before he was consciously aware of it. Her eyes flicked up at him, almost warily, and Arthur tried to smile at her. "There's not much to do here," Arthur told her by way of explanation. "I'm surprised you aren't babysitting me the way Joseph's babysitting Mal."

Alice's lips thinned in unhappiness. "Sometimes it's not good to leave her alone."

The words were diplomatic, but Arthur could hear the concern behind it. "The suicide attempts she mentioned," he murmured. She nodded then shut the book she was reading. "I won't kill myself, Ariadne."

"That's not my name," she told him gently.

"Are you sure?" he challenged. "Things change over time, especially down there," he said, making a vague gesture toward where the sleep labs were. "The Mal I just met isn't the Mal I knew before. _I_ don't feel the same as I was before."

"Oh?" Alice stilled. It was subtle, as if she didn't want him to know that she was worried, but Arthur had been watching her closely. She might not have thought that he knew her well, but he did know all of her tells. She didn't think she was Ariadne, but there was enough of her in Alice for Arthur to be able to predict her responses.

He touched her arm, fingertips light across the inside of her wrist. Her lips parted in suppressed desire exactly as Arthur hoped. "I was more reserved before. Quiet, I suppose. It was all work, getting the job done, being the consummate professional." He slid his fingertips along her wrist in a soothing motion, watching her eyes track the movement. "I had wants. I had needs. I just didn't act on them. I didn't succumb to temptation, didn't fold under pressure, didn't crack under torture." He turned her hand over and traced lines into her palm. Ariadne had laughed delightedly at his slow seductions, had loved the feel of him against her. It had been almost decadent to lie in bed for hours, learning the responses to different sensations. He missed her like a physical ache, even if Alice was sitting right there.

"And then came you," Arthur murmured. "You didn't think you were special. You didn't think you were important. But all of us trusted you and everything seemed to change once I truly got to know you." He traced a pattern into her palm, making her breath catch. Arthur leaned in slightly, not enough to startle her or make the armed guards think he would harm her, but just enough for her to be even more aware of his presence. "You _are_ worth it, Ariadne. I was devastated when you went missing. Maybe you thought you had to protect me, maybe you thought I was better off alone. Whatever the reason, I _needed_ you. I've never had that response to anyone before. I could understand why Dom was so upset when Mal killed herself. I was the exact same way."

Alice closed her eyes as if that would stop the words from coming out of his mouth. "But my name isn't Ariadne. That woman you're talking about isn't real."

"You're real," Arthur told her in a firm tone of voice. "Whatever else this place is, you are real."

She turned to face him and was startled to see their faces too close together, as if they were about to kiss. "My name is Alice Riordan," she told him, voice a little breathy. "I'm a neurologist doing a research project. I'm not an architecture student named Ariadne."

 _And if I kissed you, you would respond just like Ariadne. If we were alone together I would know just how to make you scream my name,_ he thought, fingers still moving along the inside of her wrist.

"This place," he began slowly, eyes intent on hers, "changes people. Part of you understands that, don't you? This isn't the real world. I can't prove it, but I know this isn't real. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe, Ariadne. I promise you that. I know there are terrible things out there, but I promise you that I can keep you safe from them. You don't have to be afraid of the dream share community or any of the contacts I've made. I can protect you."

"Major," Alice began, pulling away slightly.

Arthur seized her wrist, and she fell still. Her golden eyes were wide with fright, her breath frozen in her chest. "Ariadne," Arthur said, his voice soft and velvet smooth even with the undercurrent of danger. "I'm going to find out what happened. I will hurt whoever has made you afraid, and I will fix it. What happened to Mal and Dom won't happen to us."

He gave in and kissed her then, a feather light kiss that was more like the one they shared on the Fischer job. Instead of the half smile on her face, she looked more gobsmacked. He stood up and left the mess hall, wandering through the accessible portions of the base. He thought best while in motion, and this was certainly a puzzle that needed to be pulled apart. His fingers itched for a pen and a Moleskine, but he would have to make do with his own memory.

The last thing that he knew was real with any kind of certainty had been that last dinner in Paris months ago. It could very well have been that he was put under while asleep, and Ariadne was abducted. He had enemies, and not all of them could be considered gentleman thieves. Arthur would have gone further in and out of dream levels at that point; the three levels for the Fischer job had been unprecedented, but there was no actual limit that he knew of. Theoretically, if there was sedation and a steady surface for the subject, there could be infinite levels without actually hitting limbo. Three steps to the subconscious was rather arbitrary. He didn't have his totem, so he couldn’t check if he was in someone else's dream or not. He didn't like the idea of shooting himself in the head to find out, on the off chance that he was wrong, but it was at least open for consideration. This could be another dream layer to work through, and perhaps that was why everything seemed to echo with his memory but still feel off kilter. He wasn't able to shift the walls around or warp space and time, but if he wasn't the dreamer he wouldn’t have that ability. He wasn't the architect; his own skills were rudimentary at best, suitable for training runs and practice sessions amongst peers. As the subject, he would be at the mercy of whatever rules the dreamer set down for the dream.

Alice Riordan was a neurologist working with the United States army. This was of course assuming that she was exactly as she appeared to be, which Arthur doubted. Project Somnus had been disbanded years ago, and its surviving members had been transferred to other black ops missions or simply deleted if they didn't go quietly. Arthur had simply disappeared, taking a PASIV device with him.

Now that he thought about it, he found it odd that there was no PASIV here. The dream sharing tech was crude, still in its rudimentary stages. There was no PASIV, no clean or neat way to monitor brain activity other than using the net of probes and gritty conductive paste along the scalp. There were seven others in that sleep lab, and Arthur thought of Yusuf's comments about his dream den. He had up to twelve people in his dream den at any given time, all sharing the same dream. They moved in and out of it at various times, bringing in their new experiences and expanding the universe of the dream. Yusuf hadn't needed to experience it for himself and hadn't wanted to test how clear the dreams could be. "I do not explore this way," he had told Arthur as they prepared for the Fischer job. "They dream because they must, ten or twelve hours a day, then they wake to keep their body healthy. That is all. Their true lives are within the dream. Who am I to determine their reality?"

Arthur had thought it odd at the time and dismissed it. Now he thought it was a rather prescient statement to make.

Mindful of Mal's words, he tracked the presence and absence of cameras as he walked through the halls. He could almost detect the pattern to their placement, therefore guessing the sensory range for each one. That also told him exactly where the hidden alcoves were.

"You don't ever shut it off, do you?" Ariadne had teased him, laughing when he told her about his tendency to memorize maps and escape routes, even when safe and on holiday.

"You'll thank me for it, someday," he had replied, lips curling into a slight smile. "It's a useful habit to get into." Of course he then decided to memorize the curves of her body all over again, much to Ariadne's delight.

He was memorizing the army base and its security measures. This wasn't like any of the bases he had been on in the past, so the map was new. Arthur looked at everything with sharp eyes, assessing the strength of the guards and what the likely response time would be. He still felt like he was in good shape, but he would have to be overly critical of his own skills and underestimate his abilities to be sure that he would survive an escape. He wouldn't leave alone, of course, but he had to get more reconnaissance done before he could comfortably plan something of that magnitude. He didn't intend to leave anyone behind.

***

Joseph met Arthur in the rec room, one of his ever present clipboards in hand. "Hey," he called, getting Arthur's attention. Alice slipped up and called him Major or Douglas, which he hated and corrected every single time. Joseph avoided the issue by trying not to call him by name. Arthur understood the impulse and thought it was fairly indicative of his non-confrontational style. He nodded at Joseph and watched him sit down across from him. Arthur had been pretending to read the National Geographic magazine that had been left out on the coffee table, and talking with Joseph was bound to be a welcome distraction.

"Joseph," Arthur responded as a greeting. It was close enough to Yusuf that the researcher didn't notice any slips Arthur made.

"Mind if I run through some follow up questions?"

"I already did a debrief."

"Three hours ago, yes," Joseph agreed, nodding. "Tadashi had to do it since I was otherwise occupied and couldn't run the debrief myself."

"Because of Mal. Where is she now?"

Joseph pulled a face and barely suppressed a sigh. "She is currently sleeping. She got agitated and attacked a guard trying to escape."

"She was sedated," Arthur said, voice bland.

"Yes," Joseph agreed, this time releasing his sigh. "They didn't want to harm her, but she was trying to kill Fischer."

Arthur stilled and looked at Joseph. "What?"

"One of the guards that is part of her security detail. Fischer and Browning have been there from the beginning, and she tried to kill Fischer." He rubbed his jaw tiredly. "I'm not supposed to even be telling you this, but you're her friend. You always have been."

Unbidden, Yusuf's words came back at him. _They dream for ten to twelve hours a day. Who am I to tell them which is reality?_

"So why are you telling me this?" Arthur asked carefully.

"I know you don't believe us," Joseph said quietly, not looking at his clip board. "But we were doing research on multiple drops within the dream state. It's a few levels in, a few more, back and forth between levels. You and the rest of your team volunteered for this, since you did so well on the initial trials." His expression was so painfully earnest that Arthur could tell that he utterly believed what he was saying. "I don't know what went wrong. Alice is beating herself up over this trying to figure it out. But somewhere along the way, Annabelle stopped believing in her true identity and started believing that the persona she adopted in the dreams is her real one. During one of her wake up checks, she went after one of the other dreamers in the lab."

"The drop attack that she mentioned," Arthur said, meaning Alice Riordan. He couldn't quite make himself call her Alice when he still thought of her as Ariadne.

"Yeah. Alice probably mentioned it. She's worried that's what's happening to you. You still remember being a major in the army, you still remember the name Douglas at least." Joseph smiled wryly at Arthur's glower. "I read the notes, too. Just because Alice is the lead on this project doesn't mean that I don't know what's going on."

"I go by Arthur now."

Joseph nodded and raised his clipboard. "Shall we?"

It was a neat sidestep, exactly what Yusuf would have done. "My answers won't change," Arthur told him evenly. He found himself falling back into his usual professional demeanor with him, as if the overly attached version of himself never existed.

Interesting. Was _that_ the true cost of multiple drops into dreaming? They killed and suppressed projections indiscriminately, willfully fractured their psyches into convenient and inconvenient fragments to be discarded. It was a more elaborate way to explore facets of their personality, wasn't it?

Arthur had never found philosophy to be all that interesting in any of his former personae, but now it was becoming almost necessary to explain what he was experiencing.

He went through the packet of questions with Joseph, answering them as succinctly as possible while still giving the appropriate amounts of detail. "If I had a notebook," he offered afterward, "I could probably detail thoughts and ideas during the day as they came to me."

"You would do that?" Joseph asked, surprised.

"I want to find out what happened just as much as you do, if not more," Arthur told him with all honesty. "This is my mind we're talking about here, my reality. I'm more than a little invested in the entire situation, don't you think?"

Joseph smiled and nodded in agreement. "For certain," he agreed. "I'll see what I can do, but I doubt it'll be anything fancy. Spiral notebook and ballpoint pens are okay?"

Arthur looked down at the loose sweats emblazoned with the army's logo and thought of the tailored suits and boots he had worn, as well as the bespoke suits in the dreams. "I'll make do," he told Joseph with a shrug. It wasn't as if he had any options.

"We'll get all this sorted," Joseph told him in a reassuring tone. For a moment, Arthur froze and simply stared at him. That was Yusuf's tone of voice and phrasing. That was _Yusuf_ telling him the side effects of the tailored somnacin wouldn't last, that the kick would still be clean enough for what they needed. _Just one more test, Arthur? You know Eames wouldn't let me tip him out of a chair or smack his face even if it was necessary..._

Joseph didn't seem to notice the shift in his speech pattern. He was gathering up his paperwork and then looked at Arthur. "I can probably get you access to a few more rooms, but there isn't much to do here if you're not in the research project. Annabelle was bumped out three weeks ago and she still complains there's not enough to do."

"Maybe I could help during the next scheduled wake cycle," Arthur offered. It was coming soon, he knew. He wanted to see the others in the sleep lab, see if they remembered him as Arthur or as the man he had left behind to become Arthur.

Joseph sighed and shook his head. "Sorry, I can't. Protocols, you know. You're out of the program, so there really isn't supposed to be any contact. It might bleed through into the others in the project."

"There are already echoes," Arthur told Joseph in an abrupt tone. He thought of Mal and her sharp eyes, the sleepers in the lab, the attack on Fischer and the curve of Ariadne's wrists as she scribbled in a notebook.

"Yes," he agreed in a firm tone of voice. "And my job is to minimize further echoes from being introduced into the system. What we have already is bad enough. Too much and the entire project falls through."

Arthur was starting to think it might not be a bad thing.

***  
***


	3. On A Mission

It was actually rather difficult to determine which heavily guarded area was the actual sleep lab. Arthur had been too shocked upon his awakening to pay particular attention and Mal had never been as observant. She was determined to find the labs as soon as Arthur mentioned that Joseph had to go assist in the waking process. Something shifted in her gaze, and he was uncomfortably reminded again of the shade in Cobb's mind.

Cobb. Did he think Arthur had died as well? Did he think that Ariadne was _his_ shade and he had gone off the deep end? Arthur wasn't sure what would have become of Cobb without him, but it probably wasn't very good.

Mal was much more vicious than Arthur remembered. The detail following her included a young man with a nametag saying _R. Fischer_ and an older one with a _P. Browning_ nametag. Arthur tried not to do a double take, as their appearances matched their appearances from the Fischer job. Joseph had said that she had harmed Fischer, so it must have been Maurice that had been injured. Mal didn't care when Arthur mentioned it, and her soulless eyes slid past him. The memory of their friendship seemed to be lost.

And then the moment passed, and she seemed to be herself again. There was focus in her eyes, and they lit up when she saw Arthur. "Darling, we must go see to Dominic. These men won't know how to help him as we do."

"But I don't remember where the labs are..."

"No matter." Her expression grew cold and distant again, less like the Mal that Arthur had known for years. _Or was it all a dream?_ he thought suddenly, watching her turn on her heel. She threw herself at Fischer, which he hadn't been expecting. Her elbow collided with his sternum, knocking the breath out of him. Her closed fist came up and smashed into the man's nose, a spurt of blood coming out. As she shoved him aside, she seized his rifle and shot Browning in the chest three times.

It all happened faster than he could blink.

Mal turned to Fischer, that frightening expression on her face. "Take us to the labs."

"I'm not authorized," Fischer wheezed. His large eyes widened even more when Mal swung the rifle in his direction. There was nothing quite like having a loaded AR pointing at your face, and Fischer decided that this wasn't worth protesting any longer.

Arthur was starting to wonder who Annabelle had been, and if this was who he was actually looking at.

Fischer stumbled through the halls, his own rifle pointed at his back. Arthur didn't touch Browning's despite Mal's urging. "Now is not the time for principles, Arthur!" she hissed.

He shook his head sharply and gestured at Fischer. "They won't shoot. Now let's go. The cycle ought to be starting."

"I'm going to wake him up," Mal said almost dreamily as they walked. It was the same tone she had used to talk about Phillipa and James before they were born. _I wonder who they're going to be. I wonder what will make them smile._

Mal shot anyone that dared try to stop them. Arthur thought that she was acting as if the armed guards were all projections, but they weren't. They weren't swarming mindlessly, weren't ignoring their movements. They _bled._ He had a sick feeling in his gut, but knew that she wouldn't hesitate to shoot him if she thought he was getting in the way.

They burst into the lab as Joseph was helping Eames sit up. Alice was standing over Saito, adjusting the drips on his IV line. There was a timer beside Cobb's bed with two hours still on it, and he was lying asleep on the hospital bed.

Everything seemed to freeze in place as Mal pushed Fischer to the ground. She casually swung the AR in his direction, but Arthur put a hand on her arm. "No, Mal. Not like this." Arthur held out his hand for the rifle. "I'll stand guard."

Mal went to Cobb's bedside, the frightening absent look on her face gone. "Oh, my love. Don't worry, Dom. I'll wake you."

Arthur didn't see what Mal reached for, but it was enough to make the two neurologists scream for her to stop. She shot them both nasty glares, and Arthur stepped closer to Mal. "You'll kill him!" Alice was saying.

"Of course. He needs to wake up."

She was holding an empty syringe against the membrane in the IV line. Arthur understood that she meant to introduce an air bubble and cause an embolism. "Mal," he warned. "That won't work to wake him."

"Of course it will," Mal scoffed.

"There's sedation in the line. You'd send him to limbo," Arthur said, pointing the AR down at the floor and reaching to touch Mal's arm. "You need to let him wake to this level. Otherwise you'll never be together."

Her expression softened and she touched Cobb's sleeping face. "We'll be together. We'll always be together."

"Not if you kill him like this. He dies, he goes to limbo. Then you'll never find him."

Mal's hand wavered, and Arthur reached over to take the syringe. "You don't understand what this is like, Arthur. I know what needs to be done."

"I do understand, Mal," he replied gently. "But this isn't the way to wake him up."

"He's lost without me, you said," Mal murmured, tracing the line of his jaw with one hand.

Arthur saw movement out of the corner of his eye; it was Joseph moving toward an emergency call button. Eyes wide as a silent plea, Arthur held up his free hand. Triggering an alarm might make Mal go off the deep end again, and there had been enough death already.

He didn't want to stop and think about it, but projections didn't bleed. Projections didn't show fear at the sight of a rifle. Best case scenario, those had been other dreamers.

Mal caught his movement, and she whirled around to face Joseph, Eames and Alice. Saito was still asleep, though it was only a matter of time before he woke, since his drips were no longer active. Somnacin didn't take that long to leave the system. "Did you betray me, Arthur?" Mal asked, voice low and hurt. "For _them?_ They're not even real."

"I'm telling you the truth, Mal. You know I don't lie to you," Arthur told her. He was positioned between her and the others in the space where his bed used to be. Though he still held the rifle, he didn't doubt her ability to wrest it from him and shoot him dead. "Dom deserves to wake up properly. He'll be a mess otherwise." _Like you are now,_ he didn't say aloud.

"You're only doing this because you don't want me to hurt _her,"_ Mal sneered, looking at Alice's stricken expression. "Would you really choose her over me?"

"Wouldn't you choose Dom over me?" Arthur asked quietly.

Something shifted in her eyes. "Yes, I would."

"And I'd never ask you to choose," Arthur continued in that same lulling tone. "Dom's my friend, too. We have to do what's best for him."

Mal looked down at Dom with a tender expression and shifted her stance to face him more fully. "Yes, that is exactly what I want."

"So do I." Without warning, Arthur sent the butt of the rifle crashing down on the back of Mal's head. She crumpled down so that she was lying across Dom's body. He slept on, oblivious to the chaos above him.

"What the hell is going on, Douglas?" Eames blurted _in an American accent._

Arthur turned, the rifle dropping from nerveless fingers. Eames was staring at him in shock, as if he had never seen Arthur behave that way, as if he wasn't fully aware of how lethal Arthur could be if he had to.  
"She would have killed you all," Arthur said, taking in the sight of Eames ripping the EEG leads from his scalp. Joseph winced as the delicate electrodes pulled off of the cap and broke, but said nothing. "I couldn't allow her to do that." He met Alice's eyes, seeing how pale and frightened she was. "I won't let her hurt you."

"Come on," Joseph said, pulling on Eames' arm. "We still need to do the debrief..."

"Fuck the debrief," Eames cried incredulously, pointing in Arthur's direction. "What the hell is wrong with Annabelle?"

Arthur's heart seemed to freeze in his chest. "You should go with Joseph," Arthur told him, voice wooden. "You need to complete the mission."

Eames was staring at him. "Major, what the fuck?"

He could vaguely remember how foul mouthed Eames could be when under stress, though the memory was distant and blurred. Was it truly Eames who did that, or the man he was staring at wearing Eames' skin?

"You heard him," Joseph said, steel in his voice now. Eames responded to that, and looked at him. "You've had more than enough time to wake up. We're following protocol."

Joseph and Eames exited the room and more guards piled into the lab. They had their rifles pointed at Arthur, and he didn't imagine that their fingers were on the trigger guards. He kept his hands at his sides, fingers uncurled so that they could see he wasn't carrying a weapon.

"Don't shoot," Alice cried, stepping in the way.

"He's not the one that shot everyone," Fischer piped up from the floor. His color was ashen gray, and the guards finally noticed him. "She did. He stopped it from getting worse."

The guards removed Mal's unconscious body, roughly cuffing her hands behind her in case she woke up while in transit. One glared at Arthur, obviously not trusting him. He kept his rifle trained on Arthur as he approached for the fallen rifle, and he kicked it behind him toward Fischer. Arthur didn't move or have any change in expression. The guard was right not to trust him, especially after Mal's stunt.

"I'll take custody of him," Alice said quietly. "We're still following cool down protocols."

The guard obviously wanted to say something about that, but acquiesced. He remained behind as Alice pushed Arthur into a seat and shone her penlight into his eyes. She did a quick neurological exam; Arthur wondered what it cost her, since she was obviously nervous and had sweat breaking out along her scalp.

As he watched her, Arthur wondered about the somnacin drips. Saito was starting to stir, and his own debriefing protocol would have to be started. Cobb had another hour and a half to go before his. There were other counters, other dreamers.

Alice turned and looked at the guard over her shoulder when she realized Saito was starting to wake up. "Go get Tadashi. He'll have to do the debrief for me."

"Dr. Riordan," the guard began to protest.

"Do it," she barked, standing to her full height. "The Major obviously isn't going to harm me right now, and protocol has to be followed."

Reluctantly, the guard left to get the third researcher. Arthur looked at Alice coolly once they were alone. "You think it's wise to be left alone with me when no one else trusts me?"

"You said you wouldn't hurt me," Alice replied, though Arthur could tell she was nervous and starting to second guess herself.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Arthur told her honestly. He paused. "If I dreamt. I don't dream anymore though, you know that. Not without somnacin."

Something about that nagged at him. He and Cobb had talked about somnacin addiction, about the prolonged exposure and what it would do to their minds. It obviously changed _how_ they slept and dreamt. What else could it do?

"Do you give her somnacin?" Arthur asked abruptly. She was three weeks out of the protocol, if he remembered correctly.

"No, of course not," Alice replied, reaching forward to check his muscle strength again.

"So she doesn't dream either," Arthur said softly. He closed his hands over her wrists when she was close enough. Alice froze, and he could feel the fine tremors in her body. "Don't people go psychotic if they don't dream?"

Tadashi opened the door with a bang then, disrupting the moment and preventing her from answering. Alice pulled away from Arthur and turned to give Tadashi the instructions for where in the debrief protocol she had been when Mal arrived. Apparently it wasn't very far, and he was knowledgeable enough not to need her guidance. Arthur remembered that about him before, too. He was quiet and soft spoken, generally fading into the background if you didn't need to know he was there. He was the same way here, even if he was dressed in a white lab coat.

"I'm taking you back to your rooms," Alice told him in a brisk tone. "I need you to stay there."

"I will," Arthur promised her. "And after you're done doing whatever it is you need to do, I need to show you something."

Her gaze was wary. "What?"

"You don't believe me," Arthur said quietly. "You don't believe you're Ariadne and you don't believe that I know you. You think this world is real and the other one isn't."

"I _know_ who I am. I'm _Alice,_ Major."

Arthur gave her his thin, confident smile. "Then you won't mind taking a walk with me later so I can prove it to you."

As he expected, she couldn't turn down his challenge. "We'll go now," she said. "There isn't any more that I need to do here."

Arthur led Alice through the maze of hallways he had memorized. "Where are we going?" she asked, her voice rising in anxiety. She was starting to regret agreeing to walk with him through the halls, and she looked around nervously. While there were cameras everywhere, it would still take time for remaining security staff to find her. Arthur was skilled and dangerous. She could be dead long before any staff members would find her.

"You're safe with me," Arthur told her quietly. He could almost see the disbelief in her eyes. "I would never harm you, Ariadne."

"I'm not—" she began.

He whirled her around in one of the dead spots where there were no camera feeds. Balance thrown off, she crashed into him. He held her tightly and kissed her. Alice squeaked in surprise, hands flying up to his chest. She didn't push him away as he backed her up against the wall, a hand tangled in her hair and the other at her hip. "We can't," she moaned against his mouth, regret in her voice.

"No cameras here," Arthur told her, moving to mouth her neck.

"Major," she said, a whine of need in her voice. _"Douglas."_

"Arthur," he corrected, mouth sucking kisses onto her neck and the hand in her hair moving to cup a breast. "I'm Arthur now," he said as she whimpered.

Alice let out a choked sound. "I can't do this. Not in the hallway," she whispered, cheeks flushed.

"There are cameras in my room, probably in yours. They're everywhere. This is the only place we can have privacy." Arthur's voice was a low growl, his hips pressed tight against her. Her breath hitched at the feel of his burgeoning erection pressed to her hip. He kissed her on the mouth, hard and full of frantic need. Knowing that Mal would have killed her without a thought drove home that desperate feeling he had when she had disappeared. "It's been so long, and I almost lost you. I _need_ you, Ariadne, but I won't have the guards staring at you or watching a private moment."

She was simply clinging to his shoulders, fingers biting into the muscle deeply. Alice moaned into his mouth and she kept him close. There was an almost frightened look on her face when he pulled back, but his gaze was tender and full of love. "Arthur?" she whispered, voice hoarse and hesitant. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him.

He smiled as he brought his hands to the edge of her shirt. He pulled it up, revealing the thin cotton bra she was wearing. Alice flushed under his gaze. "I wasn't exactly thinking this might happen," she said tartly when he kept staring.

Arthur grinned then moved in to feather kisses along her chest. "I just missed you, Ariadne."

"I'm Alice," she gasped as his mouth moved to the rise of a breast. He lifted that breast out of the bra cup and licked her nipple. Her breath caught, and she had to lick her lips to speak. "You might be Arthur, but my name is Alice."

He sucked on her breast rather than replying, internally smiling when she clutched at the back of his head with one hand, fingers threading through his hair. The other hand was at one of his shoulders to keep her balance. When Arthur pulled back, lips wet and stretching into a pleased grin, Alice seemed almost disappointed. He leaned forward and trailed kisses down her stomach until he reached the waistband of her khakis. Alice made a soft sound, her eyes still large as she watched him. Arthur unbuttoned the pants slowly, so that she could stop him if she really wanted to. He looked up as he knelt in front of her, hooking his fingers beneath the waistband of her khakis. Visibly gulping, Alice helped shove them down from her hips.

Arthur leaned in and kissed the top of her thighs. "I'll take care of you," he murmured as he spread his hands along her hips. She bit her lip and nodded. It wasn't fear exactly; the way her eyes darted around the halls, she obviously worried about security forces walking in on them. He moved his mouth over her sex and spread her folds apart with his thumbs, keeping his palms on her hips. Ariadne tended to buck against his mouth when he did this.

Arthur dove in, licking and sucking. Alice made a soft mewling sound of pleasure, then shoved a fist against her mouth to muffle the noise. Her other hand fell to the back of his head, nails scratching at his scalp. He shifted one hand so that he could slide a finger inside of her, then two. Alice moaned, her hips shifting beneath his mouth. Arthur rolled his tongue around her clit in lazy circles and crooked his fingers into the spots that usually sent Ariadne keening with need, but Alice didn't howl exactly the same way. Twisting his fingers slightly as he licked into her, Arthur pondered what that might mean. He moved his fingers hard and fast once she tightened around them, sucking a little harder on her clit. She was gasping and moving restlessly against him, tugging on his hair. She was trying to say his name behind the fist in her mouth, her breath hitching in her chest as he brought her closer to orgasm.

He caught her when she came, sagging against the wall and nearly falling. Alice trembled in his arms, her breathing ragged. He was hard and thick inside his sweats, though he wasn't sure how long it would take for security to try to track them down to this alcove. "God, I want you so much," he growled against her ear, nipping at it lightly.

Alice reached between them and palmed his erection through the layers of cloth. She gulped for air as she rubbed him gently. "Um... I don't know if we can, the guards..."

Arthur kissed her neck and jaw, pressing himself further against her palm. "At this rate, I won't even need long," he muttered with a self deprecating laugh. "I'll have to defend my stamina some other time."

She laughed a little and pulled at his sweats. Once his cock was free to her touch, Arthur lifted her up against the wall. It only took a little maneuvering to slide inside her. Alice bit her lip and made little frightened noises, afraid she would tip over and fall. She locked her legs tight around his waist, her shoes, khakis and underwear left behind on the floor. She held onto him tightly as he surged inside her, pushing as deeply as he could as fast as he could. Alice moaned and pressed her lips against Arthur's temple, her eyes closed so she could revel in the sensation.

As he thought, Arthur didn't last long. He sagged against her and struggled to get his breathing under control. He was grateful and surprised that there weren't any guards coming. He supposed that they weren't as efficient as he would be, which worked in his favor. It also made him a little angry on Ariadne's behalf; if he had murderous intentions, no one would be able to save her. He tightened his grip on her, holding her close and inhaling the scent of her. The dreaming might have changed him, but this was the same as before and still just as necessary for him.

With regret, they disentangled themselves and hastily dressed. Alice made a face when pulling her underwear back on, making Arthur laugh. "I suppose I'm not as messy as you are."

"Worth it," she replied without thinking, then flushed to the roots of her hair.

Arthur pulled her close by the back of her neck and kissed her thoroughly, tongue sliding into her mouth. She clung to him, leaning into his lithe frame. "I'll make it better next time," he promised, gaze intent on her face.

Cheeks still flushed, Alice shyly smiled. "Maybe I could find areas without surveillance."

Pleased by her response, Arthur led her back through the maze to the hallways she was more familiar with.

There was no security detail looking for him or what had happened to Alice. They were that sure he wouldn't harm her, weren't watching or had more sophisticated means to observe them than he or Mal had presumed. Arthur assumed that it was the first or second explanation; the cameras that were already present were fairly sophisticated and difficult to notice even when they were being searched for.

If her safety wasn't important enough to them, they didn't deserve to keep her as far as he was concerned. She didn't say that she loved him and still insisted that her name was Alice, but the emotional and physical memories were there. On some level, Ariadne remembered what had happened in the dreams.

He could call her Alice if that was what she wanted, but he knew the truth. And he could wait for her to realize it.

***

"I don't do that," Alice said abruptly before opening the binder full of questions. At Arthur's raised eyebrow, she flushed in embarrassment. "The hallway thing. I don't... That's not me. It was adrenaline or something."

"Or you remember being Ariadne," Arthur replied. She opened her mouth to deny it, but he shrugged. "You taste the same. You feel the same."

Alice flushed scarlet, which was an interesting reaction. Ariadne didn't blush so easily. "Let's not talk about that anymore," she said uncomfortably.

"Then what do you want to talk about?" Arthur asked, going easy on her.

"You've been saying the dreams changed you. And then before, that you don't dream at all."

"You know that, though. If you spend long enough dreaming with somnacin, you can't dream without it. That's the only way you'll dream at all."

"Who told you that?"

Arthur frowned at her. "It's common knowledge in dream share. It's almost like an addiction for some. Somnacin changes how you sleep, the entire structure of dream architecture, both literally and figuratively." He thought of the Fischer job, the time involved in the third level. Yusuf's dream den had people living entire lives under sedation, barely waking to take care of physical needs. "People live entire lifetimes there sometimes."

"So they lose track of what's real," Alice said softly.

Arthur looked at her, lips compressed tightly together in displeasure. "I know what's real."

She was like the photo he had of Ariadne after her disappearance. Half hidden, yet still with a hint of a smile on her face, as if she knew a delicious secret. He could catch glimpses of Ariadne in Alice, could see the echoes she worried so much about. The different levels of reality kept bleeding into each other, but Arthur knew that she was a constant. Ariadne didn't change, no matter what reality it was.

Alice sighed. "Let's run through this again..."

Arthur reached across the table, fingers curling around her wrist. "They're the same questions every three to four hours. Do you really think my answers are going to change?"

"They have," she said a hoarse edge to her voice. She stared at his fingers on her wrist. "Some things don't, but other things have."

"What's changed, then?"

"We need to run through these again."

"What's changed?" he asked, fingers tightening around her wrist. Was that his imagination or did his fingers go _through_ her wrist?

"The only thing that's stayed the same are details about Ariadne and the Cobbs. Everything else changes. How you met Eames, Yusuf, Nash, your contacts outside the military, _everything._ What you remember isn't real."

Though her voice gentled at the end, the quiet words still hit him square in the center of his chest. A bullet in the brain would have been kinder.

He couldn't remember what he told her after that, the questions blurring together. "I need the somnacin," he told her suddenly. "I can help you with your research, you know I can. Mal is the way she is because she isn't dreaming, is she? She sleeps, but there are no dreams and everything shifts and changes in her mind. I've _seen_ it in her. She's not stable. What if it's the withdrawal from it? What if tapering off the doses is a better way to get off of this? I'm only what? Two or three days out? She's _weeks_ out of your protocol. She's deteriorated even in the time I've been here. Anyone can see that."

Alice was considering his words, and he lightly scratched the inside of her wrist. She shivered at the touch. "Major," she began, licking her lips.

"I'm Arthur now," he told her firmly. "Whatever I was before, this is who I chose to become when I left the army and entered dream share. This is who I am now." He pulled her in closer and leaned toward her upturned face. "I've spent _years_ being Arthur. I'm damn good at what I do, and nothing you say will change that."

"There is no dream share community. There is no PASIV device. You never left the army, Major," she insisted.

He had to give her points for consistency. Arthur tipped his head closer to hers and brushed his lips over her lower one. When her mouth parted, he sucked her lower lip in and abraded it lightly with his teeth. He still had his hand on her wrist and she was leaning precariously over her binder full of nonsense questions. "My reality," he told her slowly, "says that I did. That there _is_ a community of thieves and mercenaries, that the underground is far larger and more deceitful than you give credence. My reality says that you are Ariadne and you are _mine,_ and you cannot convince me otherwise."

"That isn't real," she gasped, pulling herself backward. "I'm not who you think I am. You were _dreaming_ all of that. This was all an experiment, just a mission to see what would happen with prolonged exposure and multiple drops within the session."

Arthur's eyes glittered as he rose, leaning over the table. "And now you know, don't you?" he said, voice low and almost menacing. It was his work persona, the tone of voice that let clients know that he would do just about anything to get the job done. It was the tone that no one wanted to fuck with, because they knew he would give as good as he got.

It wasn't fair to levy that voice and expression at Alice. She flinched back, not used to that side of him. Even Ariadne would have taken pause at the full force of his willpower.

He took her face between his hands and watched her blink back tears she didn't want to shed in front of him. He brushed her cheekbones with his thumbs and watched her eyelids flutter as she looked up at him. "Where are your guards now?" he asked.

"Y-you said you wouldn't hurt me." Her voice was breaking and he was sure he could almost hear the pounding of her heart.

It wouldn't take much to wrench her head sideways, to shatter her spinal column and send bone fragments across the spinal cord to sever it. She would fall down dead, then she would wake a layer above gasping for breath. Alice wouldn't have to feel afraid anymore, wouldn't have to keep denying the truth that Arthur knew with absolute certainty.

But some things you just didn't speak of. Some things were just too terrible to talk about, too hideous to voice aloud. Some things could only be alluded to in whispers in the dark, shied away from and feared. There were reasons why humans were scared of the dark, and they never liked to see reminders of it in human form.

"I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe," he said, fully aware of how intimidating that sounded. Arthur bent his head down and kissed her, soft and slow, tongue sliding into her slack mouth. Her fingertips were on his chest, as if she was afraid to really touch him. "You're mine, Ariadne," he said against her mouth. "No matter what name you take or face you wear. I will always know it's you, and you will always belong to me. You promised me."

She closed her eyes as he rained kisses along her face. Arthur moved around the table and pushed the binder of questions aside. "Arthur?" she asked, voice fracturing with fear.

"I love you, Ariadne," he said, moving to kiss her neck. "And you said you would always love me. I know you're keeping your promise the best that you can. I understand that I'm putting you in a precarious position here. You have to maintain your cover. It's too dangerous otherwise, but I can't let this go." His left hand closed around her throat, and her hands stilled instead of pushed at his chest. "I love you, Ariadne," Arthur said, fingers running along the taut muscles of her neck. He could feel the flutter of her pulse from her carotid artery. It wouldn't take much pressure to cut off the blood supply to her brain. She knew that, too. She wasn't stupid, and he wasn't giving her straight answers anymore.

Arthur moved to kiss her neck, teeth scraping gently over the skin. "I love you, Ariadne," he repeated, voice low and rough with desire. "Won't you say it back?" A single tear squeezed out from beneath her lashes. Alice's breaths were shallow and she was frightened. Arthur thought perhaps he should take his hand away from her throat, but it felt as if their futures were entirely dependent on her answer. "Ariadne?" he prompted.

"I love you," she rasped finally, eyes still shut tight. "I will always love you."

Smiling, Arthur claimed her mouth in another kiss. He let his hand fall from her throat to her breast. His other hand was sliding down the side of her body to her waist. "I know you do," he murmured, caressing her. "I know you're only trying to protect me the best way that you know how. It's going to be all right, Ariadne. I promise I will protect you from all that would do you harm. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe."

He leaned against the table and pulled her shivering body flush against his. "You don't have to be afraid," he said, holding her tightly. "You don't ever have to be afraid again. I've got you. You're okay. _You're okay._ I've got you and nothing will separate us ever again."

She buried her face against his chest and took deep, shuddering breaths. He stroked the back of her head tenderly and pressed a kiss to the top of it. She didn't reply, but the fact that she was clinging to him spoke volumes.

This was real, and he wasn't going to let it fall apart again.

***  
***


	4. Between Levels

"You chose her over me," Mal said, eyes flashing with irritation and grudging respect. She hadn't thought he would get one over on her. She was in her quarters, tied down to her bed in four point restraints. Arthur was sure that if these places still used straightjackets, she would be in one of them. "I won't make that mistake again."

"I'm trying to keep everyone safe, Mal," Arthur told her. "I can't let you hurt her and I can't let you kill Dom."

"He's _mine,"_ Mal hissed. "They have no business keeping him from me."

He thought of Joseph's earnest expression as he asked his questions, as he went through the protocols to bring Eames in and out of the dream state. He cared and absolutely thought he was doing the right thing. In a way, that almost made it worse. Arthur knew that Joseph was dead wrong, and that this persona was his way of hiding his expertise as Yusuf. He hadn't seen Cobb or Saito in their awake states, but he was sure that Eames' ability to be alert and fully cognizant of his surroundings was because of the myriad personae he regularly inhabited. It wouldn't particularly faze him to be someone else for a time, since he naturally did it anyway. Even in dream share he had several identities to choose from, not even counting the ID's he forged to get in and out of countries unseen. Arthur's identity in contrast had always been more solid. He knew who he was and where he was.

 _But you don't have a totem. You can't be_ sure, can you? his mind taunted.

"I've memorized the map."

Mal stilled and looked at him with large eyes. "What?"

"I haven't been violent, so they let me roam around unchecked. Couple that with my eidetic memory..." He smiled faintly when Mal laughed. "I don't intend to leave anyone behind."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, you have to calm down so they'll let you out. Then we get Dom and the others and get the hell out of here."

"Your Ariadne is one of them." Mal looked at him shrewdly. "You count her and Joseph as ones you need to save."

"The army is manipulating them somehow. Yusuf is mercenary, but he's not a heartless bastard. He's a brilliant chemist. It's probably why they've co-opted him for this."

"Your Ariadne went from architecture to neurology." Mal gave him a pitying smile. "Hardly the same field." She looked at him calmly, with the clearest eyes he had ever seen her with. "She isn't yours, Arthur. She isn't real. She went into the dreams and fucked with your head, and that's the only reason you love her. You would never have gone for her type otherwise."

Arthur bristled. "And what type is that?"

Mal laughed delightedly. "You're a sophisticate, my darling. She isn't, not by any stretch of the imagination. And you have such an imagination, don't you?"

"Eames thinks I don't," Arthur replied without humor.

"Bah. He thinks a painting of dogs playing poker is high art." Mal would have waved dismissively if she could. "Whatever will they do with you, Arthur?" she asked, lips curling into an almost manic smile. "You know they don't trust you. You spend far too much time with me, and I'm hazardous to your health. I'm mad, bad and dangerous to know."

"That was Byron," Arthur replied with a faint smile.

"Am I any different?" she asked in an arch tone. "Don't answer that," she said with a smile.

Arthur gave her a sad smile in return. "I'm working on them, Mal."

"Ariadne, you mean."

"She's the lead researcher."

"Oh, you're not nearly as merciless as that sounds. You saved her from me, after all."

"You would have killed her, then? Knowing how I feel?"

Mal gave him that flinty eyed look that could be terrifying. "I would do anything for Dom."

He nodded, understanding her answer. "I would do anything for her."

"Then we are at an impasse."

"I suppose we are, though we do have a common goal. I don't see why we can't work together. We both want out with our loved ones."

"She doesn't love you, Arthur," she said softly. "Not the way you love her."

"She'll remember," Arthur told her confidently. "I'll make her remember."

"Oh? This should be interesting."

Arthur's lips stretched into something that vaguely resembled a smile. "I'm getting back into Project Somnus," he said. "An added piece to the protocol, where I would dream separately from the others. They don't want to contaminate the shared experience." Mal snorted indelicately, making Arthur smile slightly. "But I'm in proximity with her."

"You're going to bring her under," Mal murmured.

"If I have to."

"Oh, you terrible, terrible man," Mal said in appreciation, beginning to laugh.

Arthur stood and patted her shoulder. "I'll come back for you, I promise."

"If you can't, I'll understand. Survival of the fittest."

He stopped and looked at her closely. "You have something planned."

"Of course I do, _chère,"_ Mal said sweetly. "You didn't think I would just let things happen to me if I didn't want them to, did you?"

A feeling of dread settled into Arthur's stomach. "What can you tell me?"

"Smart man," she laughed. There was a crazed edge to it, reminding Arthur of Cobb's shade. He managed to keep a straight face until she stilled. "They'll think they've cowed me, of course. They'll think they've drugged the resistance out of me. They'll think I'm broken. But I always get what I want, Arthur. You know that."

"I do." He leaned over Mal, eyes flashing. "Leave Ariadne alone."

"Then make sure she doesn't get in my way."

To anyone else, the threat might have seemed laughable. But Arthur knew Mal and what she was capable of. He knew what lengths she would go to in order to get what she wanted.

"I suppose we have an understanding."

Arthur left, knowing he could never tell Alice or Yusuf that Mal was up to something. If they truly believed she was contained, they were fools. He didn't think they were fools. Self deluded, perhaps, and definitely sincere to a fault, but not fools.

Arthur was starting to wonder if he was.

***

Ariadne was shaking. "I shouldn't be here."

Arthur spun around, checking that the room they were in was safe. He didn't have equipment to check for listening devices or pinhole cameras, but at least there weren't any guards in the room. He knelt beside her huddled form and pulled her arms away from her knees. "Sh. You're okay. It's going to be all right. I'm here with you."

She looked up at him, her golden eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "They're keeping us apart, Arthur. I shouldn't be here. I can't get you into trouble. I won't see you in danger. But I couldn't help it, I needed to see you again..."

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hungrily. She ran her hands along his face, then threaded her fingers through his hair. It was long and loose, nothing like how he liked to keep it on a job. He was dressed in the same army issue sweats that he had been wearing for the past several days on the base. She was in khakis and a camisole beneath a button down shirt. It wasn't too far off from how Alice Riordan dressed underneath her white lab coats. But she responded more enthusiastically to his kiss, and her fears weren't of him but _for_ him.

"I love you, Ariadne," Arthur told her, moving to get his hands under her shirt.

She helped him, grinning even though she was clearly still worried. "I know. I love you, too."

There was no time to do more than kiss and touch, even if he wanted to push her onto her back and fuck her senseless. He didn't know when he would see her again, when he would have the opportunity to be this close to her. There were flashes of her in Alice, but it wasn't exactly the same. It was just enough to get him to doubt himself.

Ariadne placed her palm over his heart. "You know I'll watch over you. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe." She bit her lip uncertainly. "I've done terrible things, Arthur. I had good reason to, and my intentions are good. But they're still terrible and I don't regret a thing. I can't, if you stay safe."

Cupping her face in his hands, Arthur nodded. "I understand. Sometimes you have to do things you know are morally wrong in order to preserve the greater good. It'll be all right, Ariadne. I would do the same for you. I would do anything for you."

There was a rumble from outside of the door. Ariadne scrambled to her feet and backed away from the door, her back to the wall. "They're coming for me. I know they are. Arthur, I love you. I love you. _I love you._ Whatever else they say, that's the only truth you need to know about me."

Arthur moved to her side and covered her body with his. "Whatever happens here, we'll be together." She looked up at him in distress, shaking her head. Before she could speak, Arthur put his hand over her mouth. "Together, Ariadne."

The door banged open behind him. Her eyes went wide with fear, and he could almost see a shadow reflected in the whites of her eyes.

He was struck on the back of the head. He fought to stay conscious, but he was sagging forward onto Ariadne. She was screaming, hands clutched tightly around him. _You can't take him,_ she was saying. _He's mine!_

Arthur wanted to ask who she was screaming at, but he was yanked sideways and dumped onto the floor. The last thing he heard was the report of a pistol.

***

Arthur's eyes snapped open in a room similar to the one he had just left. This time he was lying on a hospital bed, the net of electrodes and paste on his head, drips attached to his arm. There was a rustling sound next to him, and he turned his head.

Alice was lying on a hospital bed beside his, IV drips attached to her arm and a net of electrodes on her head. Her eyes moved as if she was dreaming, and Tadashi was standing over her with a syringe and glass vial. He was withdrawing five mL's of the clear fluid in the vial and then tapped the syringe to shake loose any air bubbles that he might have drawn up. Arthur watched in fascination as he checked to be sure that the bubbles were gone, pushing on the plunger until a drop beaded at the top of the needle. He moved slowly and precisely, as if still uncertain about what he was doing. Alice could do all of that without thinking about it, and the entire syringe's contents would have been inside the IV line already.

She jerked on the bed as soon as the syringe's contents hit her bloodstream. "What's that?" Arthur asked, sitting up abruptly in the bed.

Tadashi spun around, surprise on his face. "What?"

Arthur yanked the net of electrodes off of his head and the needle out of his arm. He ignored the smear of blood on the inside of his elbow and the saline running out of the line onto the floor. He stared at Tadashi, jaw clenched tight in anger. "What did you just give her?"

Alice's monitor started screaming its alarms as Tadashi stuttered "The antagonist."

Arthur didn't know what that was, and pushed him out of the way. Alice's eyes had stilled, as if she was no longer dreaming. She wasn't waking, either. He glared at Tadashi. "What the hell is going on? She's not waking up."

"The antagonist should help her wake up," he replied, shaking his head. "There wasn't any sedative in her prep."

Arthur picked up the discarded vial. "Haloperidol," he read aloud.

Tadashi looked stricken. "No, I didn't take that from the cabinet. I took the somnacin antagonist." He yanked the vial from Arthur's hand and blinked at the label. "I didn't take this vial."

"What's this going to do to her?"

"She's going to be knocked out for a while," Tadashi said, shrugging helplessly. "It wasn't meant for her. It was supposed to be for Annabelle..." An alarm sounded overhead. He pointed his finger at Arthur. "You have to stay here while we're on lockdown." He left before Arthur could reply, and he heard the locks falling into place.

He was locked in with Alice, who was sedated and dreaming. This had to be sheer nerves on Tadashi's part, but Arthur wasn't about to question his good fortune.

Arthur pulled her bed closer to his and then climbed back onto it. He carefully reattached the net of electrodes and put the settings back to where Alice had originally set them. He didn't stop to question why she had gone under when he was supposed to be dreaming alone. Ariadne had been in his dream when he went under, and she hadn't been a projection. Was Alice truly Ariadne and didn't want anyone to know? 

He didn't even flinch as he pushed the IV needle into his arm. Fuck proper technique and a new prep set. With the way dreams worked, he was already woefully behind Ariadne, wherever she was in the dream. He had to find her and figure out the truth.

***

The base was on fire.

Arthur coughed and fought his way through the maze screaming for Ariadne or Alice, either name would do. Faceless guards poured out of the doors, hands empty and masks clouded over with smoke. They ignored him as they left, so he didn't bother to try to beat them. He moved through the hallways, pulling his sweatshirt over his mouth and nose to try to filter out the smoke. He saw Eames and Yusuf in one of the debrief rooms, stretched out on the floor unconscious with bleeding gashes. He seized them one at a time and dragged them into the main sleep lab, then manhandled them onto one of the hospital beds. Saito, Cobb and the others weren't in the lab. Arthur didn't have time to check records and all of the equipment was dark. He could only assume that they had been cycled down when the fire started.

Pushing the hospital bed through the halls, Arthur's eyes watered from the smoke. If this was a different kind of research, he could have gotten goggles to protect his eyes.

There was a shadow in one corridor and muffled shouts. Without meaning to, Arthur headed in that direction. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn't Ariadne's.

It was Mal.

She had her hands locked around Ariadne's throat. Or was it Alice? She had a button down shirt and khakis on, Ariadne's usual comfortable boots and there was no lab coat in sight. She was trying to peel Mal's fingers from her throat and breathe, her golden eyes wide with fear. Mal was screaming random obscenities, and the most that Arthur could glean from it was that Mal blamed Ariadne for everything going wrong.

It took Arthur a moment, but he soon realized that Cobb was slumped on the floor and wasn't waking up. In fact, he was barely even breathing.

Arthur pulled Mal off of Ariadne, tossing her aside. The two women were sprawled on the floor and Ariadne coughed as she tried to fill her lungs with air. Mal turned to face Arthur, snarling with her teeth bared. "I told you to keep her out of my way."

Arthur paused; he thought he was supposed to be dreaming. Or had he been kicked out of the dream because he hadn't inserted the needle properly after all? He couldn't remember how he got there. He couldn't remember what he was doing before he had come into the room. Had Yusuf and Eames been doing their debrief for that long? It was such a thick binder, and time moved differently when in the dreaming state.

"You can't kill her. I don't care what name she uses, _you can't kill her."_

Mal launched herself at him, hands around his throat. "She's killed Dom! His mind is shattered now and he won't wake up! It's all her fault!"

The coughing behind him had slowed and stopped, and Ariadne staggered to her feet. Arthur managed to get out of Mal's grip and throw her to the floor. He wasn't intending to harm her, and merely pinned her to the ground. "I _told_ you that you had to let him wake up to this level. You couldn't just fuck with the doses. I _told_ you about the risk of limbo!"

"I'll kill her," Mal snarled at Arthur, all traces of their former friendship gone. "As soon as you let me go, I'll kill her for what she's done."

There was the unmistakable sound of the safety being taken off of a gun. Arthur looked up in time to see Ariadne standing there with a Beretta in her hand. She had a desperate expression on her face as she looked at Mal. "I didn't want to do this," she said, her voice wavering though her hands didn't shake. "Not again."

Arthur held up a hand to stop her, but Ariadne pulled the trigger. Mal's face exploded in a wash of blood and bone.

Skittering back, Arthur tried to wipe the spray of blood from his face. "What the hell was that?" he cried, staring at her.

"Hollow point bullets," she said, voice even. She put the gun back in a holster at the small of her back, hidden beneath the button down shirt. It was like watching a mask settle into place. "I didn't want this, but she left me no choice."

"Who are you?" Arthur asked, staring up at the woman in front of him. He loved her desperately, still, but something was so very, very wrong with this picture. He didn't think he could trust her any longer.

"Does it matter?" she asked quietly, the façade slipping slightly. She extended a hand out toward him, intending to help him to his feet. "I said I would do whatever it took to protect you. I told you I loved you at least a thousand times. I meant it."

"Ariadne?" he asked, taking her hand. There was wariness in his heart, but he schooled his face impassive as he always used to do. It wouldn't help him if she knew the trust was gone.

She seemed to sense it anyway. Ariadne had always been perceptive that way. "I can't tell you so many things, Arthur," she whispered. "It isn't safe here."

Turning to the open doorway, Arthur saw that Eames and Yusuf were no longer on the stretcher. He could only hope that they got away. "Then where is?" he asked her, eyes snapping back to her face. He thought of taking her gun from her. He could put a bullet in her head the same way she had done it to Mal, but he might as well shoot himself as well. Whatever else she had done, he was still tied to her.

"You're not safe if I'm with you." she cupped his face in her hands. "I've broken all the rules to stay with you. I've done terrible things I can't tell you about. I love you, Arthur. I love who are and who you've been and who you're going to be." Tears shimmered in her eyes. "You might not feel the same, but it's bearable if you survive."

Was she real? Was he still dreaming and she was just a figment of his imagination? Did he corrupt one of his own projections and turn her into someone he could love as desperately as Cobb and Mal had loved each other? He used to be jealous of their attachment to each other and hadn't ever thought he could have that for himself. Did he _create_ Ariadne out of Alice Riordan? He didn't know anymore. He didn't know anything anymore.

When he didn't respond, Ariadne pulled back and half covered her face with her hands as she struggled to take in a breath to steady herself. Arthur thought of the photo he had shown Cobb, the hand in her face and the quirky smile on her lips that her hands couldn't quite hide. He found himself reaching for her even though he hadn't meant to.

"I would do anything for you," Ariadne whispered. "Anything at all."

Arthur took the gun from her hand as she drew it from the holster. "I won't let you kill yourself," he said in grave tones. "Whatever else happens, we're together, got it? Just like I said before." As he said the words, he knew them to be true. Trust or no trust, he couldn't let her die and he couldn't let her out of his sight. "You don't have to tell me what you've done. I can't say I've done any better over the years."

Her relieved smile loosened his chest; Arthur hadn't even realized how tense he had been up until that point. "So now what?"

"We go somewhere safe. We can let them assume that we died in the fires."

"It won't be that easy. They'll do a body count."

"Let them." Arthur's eyes swept over Cobb's prone form and Mal's shattered face. "There's been too much loss already."

She nodded, her gaze lighting on Mal's corpse. "She was going to kill us," Ariadne murmured before looking up at Arthur. "I don't regret it. I'd do it again if I had to."

"Why are you telling me this?" Arthur asked, hand tightening around the Glock.

"Because I don't regret the other things I've done either. If we're leaving together, you need to know that much." Her expression was so earnest, the same way it used to be when she was showing him her models before taking him under for a walkthrough. "I know she was your friend, I know you wanted to save her if you could. You'd never leave someone behind if you had an option."

"And so you took it out of my hands," Arthur murmured.

"Yes."

"Why are you making a point of telling me this?"

Ariadne's eyes searched his face. "You know how to find things out, how to uncover traces that others want to keep hidden. I'm nowhere near as good as you are in covering tracks. I'm not an innocent anymore, Arthur, and I don't want you to regret this moment," she said quietly. She pulled his arm with the Glock so that it was pointed at her chest. "If you have to, I'd rather you do it than anyone else."

Arthur looked at her with a stricken expression. "Ariadne..."

"If you had to choose, you or me, I want you to choose _you._ That's what I want you to know. Everything has been to make sure you survive." Her voice cracked and a tear fell down her face. "Because I love you, Arthur. Because you're everything to me. I couldn't bear it if something happened because of me and my choices. I could stand you hating me if you had to, leaving me if it came down to it. But I need to know you're okay." She took a hitching breath and her hand tightened over his. If Arthur's finger had been on the trigger and not the guard, he would have blown a hole through her chest. "I love you. And I will do anything to keep you safe."

He pulled his hands out of hers and swept her tightly in his arms. "When you left me, it was like someone ripped out a part of me," Arthur said quietly. "We can rebuild the trust, but only if we're together. Only if you tell me what I need to know."

"I've killed, Arthur. I've killed so many times." She buried her face in his chest and sobbed. "I can't even recognize myself sometimes. I'm not the same and I can't even regret it because you're here and they haven't destroyed you."

Arthur held her tightly. "Is that all?" he asked, relief evident in his voice. "You should know better, Ariadne. I can't tell you how many people I've killed in and out of dreams. That won't make me hate you."

She looked up, a plaintive and lost expression on her face. "It wouldn't? Not even Mal?"

Arthur looked over at the body with a pained sigh. "We told each other it would end this way. That I couldn't allow her to kill you. She would have killed me if it would allow her to get Dom back." He looked back at Ariadne. "That doesn't make it any less painful, but it's a necessary evil to keep you alive."

Understanding what he meant, Ariadne nodded. "Then let's go, before the guards come looking for us."

Arthur tipped her head up toward his and kissed her thoroughly. Ariadne made a soft mewling noise deep in her throat and clung to him desperately. "Where would we go?" she asked in a soft voice. "We wouldn't have anything."

"I've left with nothing before," Arthur told her with a negligent shrug as he guided her down an empty hallway. "I can do it again. In fact, it'll be easier this time since I already have contacts in Europe and Asia. I might have to burn my contacts in the CIA to be sure they won't look for us." He kissed her forehead. "But all that's a moot point if they catch us."

Ariadne was shaking in his arms. "We need to get out of here fast, then."

He had a soft twist to his lips that was almost a smile. "I know the way out."

"You do?"

"I've memorized the map."

Ariadne laughed a little. "I have, too. Mazes are kind of my thing." 

Hands linked, they made it out of the base without any difficulty.

***

Alice Riordan gasped awake, eyes flying open. She looked over at Tadashi, who was monitoring her vital signs. He took in her wild eyed appearance and frowned. "Should I get Joseph? I think he should be done with his debrief around now."

A small choking sound came out of her throat, and she started scratching at it desperately, the IV lines tearing out of her arm. Alarmed, Tadashi slammed his hand on the red code button. He fought with Alice to keep her hands away from her throat, though there already were large red welts over her delicate skin. She made guttural screams as she fought him, golden eyes large and wild. Joseph accompanied the guards that rushed in, and he took in her appearance. "Jesus!" he cried. "Did she say anything on waking?"

"Nothing," Tadashi told him, shaking his head. He still struggled with one of her arms while the two guards pinned her legs and other arm to the bed. He nodded in the general direction of the other sleeping figure on the nearby hospital bed. "That one's out."

"Readings?" Joseph asked in clipped tones as he moved to the medication cabinet.

"Stable and slow. Wherever he is, he's deep and he's out of our reach."

"And Alice?" he asked, taking a bottle of lorazepam to reconstitute.

"They looked fine, and then this happened."

Frowning, Joseph put down the lorazepam and moved to Alice's line of sight. "Hey!" he called, drawing her attention. Her eyes were wild and panicked, and she continued to make guttural sounds of fear. He held up his hands for her to see. "You're okay. You're okay. You're safe, I promise. You were hurting yourself, and we're trying to keep you safe." Alice let out another choked sound, and it sounded like she was wheezing. "Can you breathe?"

She shook her head and wheezed again as if trying to speak. Guttural sounds that might have been k's were all that came out.

"I'm going to get you something that should help the panic, okay? If we need to, I'll get the nebulizer to open up your airways." Joseph smiled when he saw the relief in her eyes. "I've got you, Alice. Okay?"

She nodded and watched as he set about reconstituting the lorazepam and prepping it for injection. "One milligram to start," he told her as he swabbed her deltoid muscle. "If you need more, I'm giving you the other one."

It kicked in quickly and she stopped trembling. The guards only released her when Tadashi did, and they remained nearby just in case. Alice waved at Joseph and the needle, so he injected the other milligram. He coached her breathing, and Tadashi indicated that the crisis was over and he didn't need the guards any longer.

"What happened?" Joseph asked her.

"There's another me in the dream. A whole other base, whole other world. That's why he won't wake up." Alice wheezed and grasped the side rail tightly. "He doesn't need to wake up. He doesn't _want_ to wake up. There's a corrupted version of me down there, and she's keeping me out. She set fire to the base to kick me out."

Joseph blinked in surprise, mouth dropping open. _"What?"_

"Yeah," she rasped, concern and distress both in her expression. "I had to change my appearance after I got kicked out the first few times. I couldn't confuse him with two of me running around in there, not after the others went psychotic and committed suicide. I had to..." Alice gulped. "I watched her pretend to be me to try to sever their connection, and it was just... I couldn't let him fall in deeper, but I couldn't save him. It's just like the others…

"I remember," Joseph said encouragingly as Tadashi surreptitiously took notes. It was always best to get the first impressions, especially after a violent death. If the memories weren't retrieved as fresh as possible, they suffered the natural degradation of dreams. Even traumatic ones faded if given enough time.

"I managed to get into the other base's data files. The other me kept notes that look pretty similar to mine about Somnus' start," Alice rasped. She pulled on the rails to give her better leverage to sit up. Joseph helped her as Tadashi kept scribbling. "Multiple levels, drops within drops, trying to go between levels, tracking projection changes as they went. I think she was supposed to keep him on track in case he got lost in there. The notes were impeccable at first. But then they started getting incoherent and she was signing them 'Ariadne.' I think she was trying to sever their connection, but he just couldn't let go." 

"So let me get this straight. She was helping you in the beginning?" Joseph asked.

"I managed to get in a few times to try to pull him up a few levels, but his connection to her kept dragging him down." Alice coughed and shook her head in grudging respect. "He loves her. Or she made him love her, I don't know. I tried to use that connection to bring him up further, something to anchor him to reality. He needed something real, some reason to come back." Alice coughed again and didn't quite manage to hide the guilty look on her face. "I didn't want to lose another dreamer, not after Annabelle killed those guards and then herself. I couldn't let that happen again."

"Of course," Joseph said soothingly as Tadashi scribbled.

"I think that's when she stopped helping me. I don't think Ariadne wanted me using emotions to manipulate him, not when he truly loved her. She's killed me a few times, as well as the other projections who threatened him."

"But he would have had to realize what was happening. Projections aren't real," Joseph said, turning to look at the other sleeping body in the room. His chest rose and fell evenly, tracings on the EEG showing no appreciable change.

Alice coughed and managed to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. "Whenever he started realizing he was dreaming, she upped the level of detail. It was amazing. I'd be more impressed if I wasn't fucking pissed. He lost reality testing."

Joseph stilled, frowning at Alice. "So he's lost, then?"

"Yes," she told him. She licked her lips and was surprised when they didn't feel dry and cracked from heat and smoke.

"Another one?" Tadashi couldn't help but blurt out.

"We need to shut it down. That's too many losses, and he had the strongest willpower and reality testing in the early evaluations."

"Sullivan's not going to like it..." Joseph said. Tadashi nodded as he scribbled, agreeing.

"We fried his brain, Joseph!" Alice cried. "This was meant to be a _training exercise_ and _research._ We weren't supposed to trap him inside his own mind between levels."

"If we shut down the program, he definitely won't wake up," Tadashi told them quietly, putting aside his pen now that he was caught up transcribing Alice's comments. He didn't include her recommendation to shut down the program. "That would lock him into a coma until the body finally dies."

"He's not coming out on his own and I can't get to him. I can't even get close without something happening to wipe me out," Alice said, shaking her head. "Ariadne wins. She's got him trapped in the maze now."

"Like the others," Joseph murmured, crossing his arms over his chest sadly. He dropped his chin down as he thought. "It doesn't matter who goes in to get them. They all choose the dreamed up reality over this one. They don't care if that world isn't real."

"We can't do this to anyone else," Alice said, looking at the two men with an almost pleading expression. "We have to pull the plug and save the last few volunteers before they succumb, too. It won't be much longer until they question reality, too."

"Then we'll deal with the consequences," Joseph said after a moment. He looked up and nodded sharply in agreement. "We have to save the ones that are left."

"We can always try again in a little while," Tadashi said, reaching out to touch Alice's arm. "If it was me or Joseph, this Ariadne projection won't have as tight a hold. We'd be attacking it from a different angle."

"It didn't work for the two specialists," Alice murmured. "But then, their grasp on reality was weak to start with. Give it a few hours before you go in," she advised. "He'd be expecting another challenge right away."

They looked at the sleeping figure in the next bed. The rise and fall of his chest was steady, his eyes closed and unmoving. The EEG tracing remained the same.

 _Good luck, Arthur, wherever you are,_ Alice thought as she climbed down from the hospital bed. _I hope you find what you need._

She was the last one out of the room, and she shut off the lights before closing the door.

The End


End file.
